What began as a nighttime arrest has spiraled into one of Ghana’s most serious constitutional confrontations in years. Salomay Bafoh Awiti, a registered nurse stationed at Abetifi Hospital in Techiman, was taken from her home by heavily armed security personnel and held incommunicado — a move that has ignited fierce debate over how far Ghana’s national security apparatus can go in the name of protecting the state.
The night everything changed
Shortly before 11 p.m. on a recent Saturday, security operatives stormed Awiti’s residence. She was handcuffed in front of her family on vague grounds: alleged suspicious Mobile Money transactions and the circulation of videos deemed “offensive.” She was then driven to an undisclosed location.
The human toll was immediate. Three minor children — aged 4 and 15 — were left behind with no arrangements for their care. For more than 48 hours, exceeding the constitutional limit for detention without charge, neither her relatives nor her legal team could obtain any information. The Ghana Police Service, the National Security Secretariat and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) all refused to confirm where she was being held.
A legal battle against a wall of silence
Her lawyer, Enoch Afoakwa, eventually located her at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Accra after a grueling search. He has since accused interrogators of coercing his client into making statements without legal counsel present.
The case took a sharply political turn when prosecutors told Circuit Court One that Awiti was allegedly part of a plot to “overthrow the government” in collusion with a virtual intermediary. The defense dismissed the claim as far-fetched, noting that no charge sheet had been furnished to the lawyers before the hearing. “We are back to the darkest hours of our history,” Afoakwa said, condemning what he described as a systematic assault on constitutional safeguards.
Parliament, public opinion and a widening rift
The fallout has reached the floor of Parliament. Lawmakers from the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), including MP and lawyer Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, are facing mounting pressure from civil society and human rights groups. While some MPs defend a hard line on national security, a growing segment of the public questions where counter-crime operations end and political intimidation begins.
With medical associations and civil liberties organizations amplifying their protests, the court adjourned proceedings and ordered the prosecution to formalize its accusations. What started as one nurse’s ordeal has become a broader referendum on Ghana’s democratic resilience — and on whether state security can be wielded without accountability.
