Nana Akomea, a stalwart of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and managing director of the State Transport Company (STC), has denied trivializing the death of social activist Ibrahim “Kaaka” Mohammed, as some social media users have claimed. He stressed that his use of the phrase “mere death” did not imply that he did not take Kaaka’s death seriously, but rather had to do with the reasons for the demonstration in the first place.
Mr Akomea has been accused, mainly by one Marie Boadu, a social media critic, of downplaying the severity of Kaaka’s death by the use of “mere” in talking about his death in a discussion on Metro TV Good Morning Ghana.
“I have been tagged in a 20 seconds footage of GMG on metro tv last Friday, meant to show l had trivialized the killing of Mr Kaaka as a “mere” death.
Nothing can be further from the truth. I had begun my contribution by expressing profound condolences to the bereaved family and urged them to rescind their decision not to cooperate with the investigative committee as the whole nation stood with them to unravel the circumstances of their loss, and to deliver justice to them.
I also commented that the committee’s encounter with the journalists was on the belief that their initial reports had linked the killing of Mr Kaaka to his activism and that had sparked the demonstration that led to the other two unfortunate deaths,” Mr Akomea clarified.
He emphasized that the demonstration in the wake of Kaaka’s death could not have come about just because Kaaka died or was killed but most likely came about as a result of something else – in this instance suspicions on the circumstances surrounding his death.
“My friend Randy Abbey[ host of the show] thought otherwise, that the demonstration may not have been influenced by the reported linkage of Mr Kaaka’s death to his activism, but was spontaneous reaction by his Mr Kaaka’s friends and community.
I disagreed with him, and stated that demonstration/rioting may not be caused merely because someone had died or been killed/murdered.
Rioting/demonstration after a death take place when there is deep suspicion about the circumstances of the death, and not merely because someone had been killed…it is in making my point that demonstrations/rioting won’t normally happen after a death that l used the word ‘mere’. My use of the word was in no way meant to trivialize the very unfortunate death of Mr Kaaka,” he explained.
The assassination of Kaaka provoked a demonstration in the Ejura township, which resulted in the deaths of two protesters after the military invaded the area on the invitation of the Ashanti Regional Minister and fired live rounds into the demonstrators.
