Your Excellency, President John Dramani Mahama,

Ghana did not bleed through military coups, survive Rawlings' revolutionary tribunals, and build thirty years of constitutional democracy — only to arrive here: a government arresting citizens for TikTok videos and social media complaints about the lights going out.

The pattern is no longer deniable.

We, the New Patriotic Party USA Branch (NPP-USA), write to you — and to every democracy-defending institution in the world — because what is happening in Ghana today is not a matter of partisan dispute. It is a matter of constitutional record.

I. A Chronology of Documented Abuses — January 2025 – May 2026

Weeks after your inauguration, Kwame Baffoe — Abronye DC — became the first opposition figure summoned and detained by the National Investigations Bureau, held for over 13 hours for publicly condemning the mass dismissal of over 150,000 government workers. He was warned, in custody, to stop criticizing your government.

He was not silenced. So, he was arrested again in September 2025, remanded, and denied bail — twice — by a court that cited his asylum application as grounds for continued detention. A man seeking asylum because he fears persecution was punished with persecution. He was arrested a third time in October 2025. Three arrests. One man. One government intolerant of one voice.

Veteran journalist and broadcaster Okatakyie Afrifa-Mensah was picked up by National Investigations Bureau operatives on the evening of March 19, 2025, under circumstances so unclear that even his colleagues did not initially know where he was being held. He was released the following day following widespread public outrage and parliamentary intervention. He was then reportedly re-arrested by the Cyber Crime Unit of the Ghana Police Service on March 25, 2025. We condemn these actions as precisely what they are: state-sponsored attacks on a free press. The Ghana bequeathed to your administration on January 7, 2025, was a country with functioning institutions, a free media, and an unwavering constitutional commitment to press freedom. What you have chosen to do with that inheritance is a matter the world must now see clearly.

Alfred ‘Adenta Kumi’ Ababio Kumi, a youth activist, submitted a lawful petition to the Presidency regarding the conduct of the committee investigating the Chief Justice. For this civic act, approximately twenty armed men stormed his Adenta residence at dawn on May 23, 2025, demanding he come outside. They did not identify themselves. He was taken away without explanation and charged with publication of false news. His lawyer argued there was no legal basis whatsoever for the charge. He was released the same evening, only after Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin personally intervened.

Is submitting a petition to the President now grounds for a pre-dawn armed raid?

Ashanti Regional NPP Chairman Bernard ‘Chairman Wontumi’ Antwi Boasiako was arrested by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) after reporting for questioning. He was held for several days before being released after his lawyers met bail conditions. We have observed a consistent pattern in EOCO’s conduct: enforcement actions against opposition figures are pursued with speed and aggression, while credible allegations against government-aligned individuals move at a painfully slow pace. That is not the rule of law. That is the rule of political convenience.

Former Member of Parliament and GIHOC Distilleries Managing Director Maxwell Kofi Jumah has been arrested twice — first in June 2025, when National Security operatives searched and ransacked his Kumasi residence, and again on April 28, 2026, following a second raid on his home by EOCO. He was granted police bail on the condition of paying GH₵55 million — a figure his legal team could not meet. He is currently hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital due to serious health complications arising from his detention. The man is unable to make bail, not because he is a flight risk, but because the bail is designed to be unpayable.

Your administration arrested at least eight citizens — among them Priscilla Duah, Charity Tetteh, and Emmanuel Kwakye Asare — for content posted on Facebook and TikTok. The contrast is stark and indefensible: pro-government voices who have made comparably inflammatory statements faced no comparable consequences. Selective justice is no justice at all.

Abubakar Yakubu — “Baba Amando” — Communications Officer in Sunyani East, was arrested in the same period for alleged cyber-related offenses against state officials. Minority Leader Afenyo-Markin personally executed his bail bond to secure his release.

Also detained in August 2025 was Daniel Adomako — “Sir Obama Pokuase” — a prominent NPP social media activist and communicator, arrested on August 13, 2025, by the Ghana Police Service in an operation it described as targeting the display of weapons on social media. He was held for nearly five days before meeting bail conditions at the Accra Circuit Court. Upon his release on August 18, he was immediately summoned back to Police Headquarters and re-arrested on a fresh complaint. We say plainly what every objective observer can see: these arrests are shamelessly biased and absolutely partisan. A police service whose motto is “Service with Integrity” must not become an enforcement arm for the political agenda of an executive determined to silence its critics.

Kofi Ofosu Nkansah, former Chief Executive Officer of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), went on Sompa Radio 106.5 FM to make public allegations about the sale of government-funded overseas scholarships. For speaking out, the National Intelligence Bureau came for him. Invited on February 5, 2026, he cooperated fully, presenting himself with his lawyer. He was sent home without charge.

On February 9, while in Kumasi attending to his seriously ill father, the NIB summoned him again. He explained his father’s condition and asked to report on February 11. The NIB refused. When he reported on February 10, heavily armed officers took him to his home to conduct a search — unable to produce a warrant when challenged by his lawyer — before transporting him to an unknown location, cut off from legal counsel. We describe this conduct as what it plainly is: excessive, abusive, and politically motivated. He was granted bail of GH₵500,000 on February 11, 2026.

Four days later — February 15, 2026 — his father died suddenly. In grief, Ofosu Nkansah wrote on social media: “My Dad has never fallen sick aside going to hospital every quarter for his routine check-ups, and within a week he is gone just like that.” He then addressed those who had held him directly: “Those with power now who refused my request to spend more time in Kumasi to observe my seriously sick old boy too I thank you. I guess you are happy now.”

His father’s funeral is yet to be held as of the date of this release.

Wilberforce Asare — Head of Legal and Political Desk at Asaase Radio, one of Ghana’s most respected independent broadcast outlets — was contacted in February 2026 by an officer from the office of the Inspector-General of Police and asked to appear before investigators. His offence: a series of investigative reports into the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF), a state entity, which prompted a complaint from MIIF Chief Executive Justina Nelson and the Fund’s communications director. He appeared voluntarily with his lawyers on February 24, 2026. By March 26, 2026, police had decided to formally charge him with attempted extortion, threat of harm, and publication of false news — charges Asare flatly rejected. “As far as my work on MIIF is concerned,” he said, “none of the publications have been denied by the institution.”

Wilberforce Asare was not physically arrested. He was not remanded. He appeared — as any law-abiding citizen would — and cooperated fully. And for that, the state moved to prosecute him. He has called it what it plainly is: a “gag attempt.”

In Ghana today, investigating a government institution is treated as a criminal act.

Abronye DC was arrested again by the Criminal Investigations Department over allegations of offensive conduct and false publication related to public criticism of a presiding judge. Minority Leader Afenyo-Markin personally stood surety for his bail, telling the media the police had initially intended to keep him in custody indefinitely.

David Essandoh — “Sam Toys” — NPP Agona West Constituency Organizer, was detained in a “Rambo-style” operation conducted by masked, heavily armed security personnel in Agona Swedru, Central Region. His offense: a Facebook post about dumsor. Not sedition. Not incitement. A citizen complaining that the lights are off.

When NPP National Organizer Henry Nana Boakye contacted the CID, the NIB, and National Security to locate him, each institution denied any knowledge of the arrest. A Ghanaian citizen was being held by unknown state agents in an unknown location — and the state itself claimed not to know where. He was eventually found at the Bureau of National Investigations, granted inquiry bail, and released.

As we write this letter, NPP Bono Regional Chairman Kwame Baffoe Abronye DC has been brought before the Adenta Circuit Court and remanded into the custody of the National Investigations Bureau — not for two weeks, not for a month, but until the final determination of his case. If proceedings run to six months, one year, or beyond, Abronye DC will remain in NIB custody for the duration. This is not a remand. This is indefinite political imprisonment dressed in judicial procedure.

We note with undeniable clarity that Abronye DC is a man with a fixed address, a known family, no flight risk, and no history of violence. Bail was denied anyway. Meanwhile, persons accused of far graver offenses walk free because they carry the right party card. This is not the administration of justice. It is the administration of political power through judicial procedure.

We have documented a damning double standard: opposition cases are fast-tracked through the courts at extraordinary speed, while cases of corruption and abuse of office involving government appointees sit quietly at the Attorney General’s office, gathering dust. Every Ghanaian can see it. Every international observer should name it. This is a creeping authoritarianism dressed in judicial robes, and we refuse to be silent in its face.

We stand in full solidarity with every Ghanaian who, like us, believes that what is being imposed on this country is not justice. It is intimidation. It is the weaponization of courts, prosecutors, and security agencies against citizens whose only offense is belonging to the opposition. We will not normalize it. We will not accept it. And we will not stop calling the world’s attention to it for as long as it continues.

II. Documented Cases of Arrest & Detention

III. The Constitutional & Legal Breach

These incidents do not represent isolated errors in law enforcement. Taken together, they constitute a deliberate and systematic pattern — the weaponization of the State against the voice of the citizen — in direct contravention of Article 21(1)(a) of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, which unambiguously guarantees every Ghanaian the right to freedom of speech and expression.

Ghana’s Constitution does not say free speech unless it offends the Inspector General of Police. It does not carve out exceptions for satire, caricature, or a social media post about blackouts. The charges most deployed — ‘offensive conduct likely to breach the public peace’ and ‘publication of false news’ — are archaic, colonial-era instruments repurposed as tools of political silencing. Furthermore, the conduct of security agencies across multiple incidents — pre-dawn raids, failure to identify arresting officers, denial of knowledge of detained persons, and bail conditions set beyond any reasonable means of compliance — directly violates Article 14 of the 1992 Constitution, which governs the rights of detained persons.

IV. A Call to the International Community

Ghana has long been held as West Africa’s democratic beacon. That reputation is now at risk. The international community is asked — urgently — to take note of the documented trend above and to raise these concerns through all appropriate diplomatic and legal channels:

• The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
• The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
• The ECOWAS Court of Justice
• The European Union Delegation to Ghana
• The United States Embassy, the United Kingdom High Commission, and all resident diplomatic missions
• The Commonwealth Secretariat and all international civil society organizations monitoring democratic governance in Africa

We call on Freedom House, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, and every credible human rights body with a presence or interest in West Africa to document, report, and act on the pattern described herein.

V. Our Demands

We call upon His Excellency, President John Dramani Mahama, and the National Democratic Congress administration to:

• Immediately release all citizens currently detained or facing prosecution solely for exercising their constitutional right to free expression;
• Drop all charges that are manifestly political in nature and inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the 1992 Constitution;
• End the practice of imposing punitive and unconscionable bail conditions designed to intimidate rather than assure appearance in court;
• Restore the operational independence of state security institutions — the CID, NIB, and BNI — from political direction;
• Guarantee, through word and deed, that no Ghanaian will be arrested, detained, or threatened for peacefully criticizing the Government of Ghana.

VI. Closing

History, Your Excellency, is not kind to governments that confuse power with permanence. The “culture of silence” your own party once fought against did not end well for those who imposed it.

Ghana’s democracy is not the NDC’s property to dismantle, nor any other party’s to reclaim. It belongs to every Ghanaian who has ever stood in a queue to cast a vote in the hope that their voice would count for something.