On the morning of Wednesday, February 2, 2022; the host of Onua FM/TV Morning Show, Blessed Godsbrain Smart (Captain Smart), was on air presenting his political show that is critical of government and ill-governance.
Smart and key ally appear before Circuit Court
When the show ended, Smart and a colleague Eric Daniels Dadzie Copperfield (DJ GH Boy) honoured summons of an Accra Circuit Court before which they were slapped with charges of extortion and abetment to extortion.
The duo, at the time officially labelled as accused persons, pleaded not guilty to the charges and were subsequently granted bail to the tune of GHC50,000 with four sureties.
Briefing at National Security
Despite being granted bail at around 10:45am, the process of verifying the place of abode of the four sureties took time as both accused were shuttled between the court, homes of sureties and the National Security office in Accra.
A 3news.com report outlined their stay in temporal detention as bail conditions were being verified.
“The two gentlemen were first taken to the National Security office and they stayed there for three hours in the name of briefing the coordinator of what had transpired at the Court,” the report said in part.
Delay in the verification of sureties and shuttle between Ministry and Police Station
The 3news.com report continued that: “After three hours at the National Security, one officer (Eric Osei) went with the four sureties to verify their places of abode. This process was delayed until the court closed, hence they were not able to process all the conditions for bail.
“The court closed at 4 pm by which time the officers who had gone for verification had not returned and so the officers took the two suspects to National Security and then to the Ministries Police Station where they were kept for an hour.”
‘Re-arrest’ by National Security?
According to reports, with the courts closed and while still at the Ministries Police Station, National Security officers fetched Captain Smart and his co-accused.
Their reason was that they had orders from above to bring them back to the office of National Security.
Background
The Police CID last month via an official statement said they will press charges relating to defrauding by false pretences and accepting and giving bribes to influence a public official against Captain Smart.
The issue relates to an allegation that started last year on Net2 TV, that a businesswoman had approached Captain Smart with the view of helping her influence the Transport Minister, Kwasi Amoako-Atta over a land that she was interested in.
The Minister was the one who lodged the case with the Police after the allegation was reported in the media.
Captain Smart in his response has accused the government of using such frivolous matters with the view of gagging him. He said on the January 19 edition of his programme that he remained undaunted by the scheming.
“That a person of my stature has been given GHC10,000 to go and influence the Roads Minister. Can you imagine this rubbish? If so, then the Minister is very cheap. That I should influence him with GHC10,000.
“How is it that since 2018, you are now pursuing this matter in 2022. I swear that I have no idea about that nonsense that is aimed at just implicating Captain Smart,” he submitted.
