A decisive rupture in Ghana’s rule-of-law narrative
The violent arrest and secret detention of nurse Salomay Bafoh Awiti have driven Ghana into a defining political and legal crisis. For years, the country has worn its democratic credentials and respect for the rule of law as a badge of honour. Now, evidence brought to light by her lawyer, Enoch Afoakwa, sharply challenges the excesses of national security agencies and the disproportionate use of state force against citizens.
The night of the raid: armed agents, abandoned children
The events unfolded late last Saturday around 11 p.m., when heavily armed security operatives stormed the home of Salomay Bafoh Awiti, a registered nurse stationed at Abetifi hospital in Techiman. Handcuffed in front of her relatives under the opaque pretext of suspicious Mobile Money transactions and the circulation of videos deemed “offensive”, the nurse was taken to an undisclosed location.
The human tragedy was compounded by a blatant breach of social protection protocols: the operatives took the mother away, leaving behind her three minor children, aged 4 and 15, without assistance or care. For more than 48 hours — beyond the constitutional limit for police custody — her family and legal team hit a wall of silence. From the Ghana Police Service to the National Security Secretariat and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), no institution would confirm where the accused was being held.
State security charges and trampled rights
Only after an arduous search did Enoch Afoakwa finally locate his client, who had been transferred to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) offices in Accra. The lawyer denounced abusive interrogation methods, saying the nurse was repeatedly pressured to testify without her legal counsel present.
When she appeared before Circuit Court One, the case took a sharply political turn as prosecutors alleged a conspiracy to “overthrow the government” in collusion with a virtual intermediary. The defence dismissed the accusation as far-fetched, stressing that prosecutors failed to provide any charge sheet to the lawyers before the hearing. “We are back to the darkest hours of our history,” Afoakwa protested, pointing to a systematic violation of constitutional guarantees.
The majority’s awkward silence and institutional stakes
The shockwave from this case has reached Parliament, where the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) majority and its legal figures — such as MP and lawyer Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah — now face pressure from civil society and human rights organisations. While some lawmakers defend the firmness of institutions on national security matters, the public is questioning the increasingly porous line between fighting crime and weaponising the judicial system for political intimidation.
Faced with growing protests from the medical profession and civil liberties groups, the court adjourned the session to compel the prosecution to formalise its charges. This case now goes beyond the individual fate of Ms Awiti to become the ultimate test of Ghanaian democracy’s resistance to the temptations of state arbitrariness.
