Ghana’s Salomay Awiti case: secret detention, abandoned children and an alleged coup plot

The violent arrest and incommunicado detention of nurse Salomay Bafoh Awiti has triggered a political and legal firestorm in Ghana. A country that has long taken pride in its democratic traditions and its respect for the rule of law now faces uncomfortable questions about the conduct of its national security agencies and the disproportionate use of state force against citizens. The facts, brought to light by her lawyer, Enoch Afoakwa, paint a troubling picture.

The night everything changed: a pre-dawn raid and three children left behind

It was close to 11 pm on a recent Saturday when heavily armed security operatives stormed the home of Salomay Bafoh Awiti, a qualified nurse working at Abetifi hospital in Techiman. Handcuffed in front of her relatives and accused — on opaque grounds — of suspicious Mobile Money transactions and of circulating videos deemed “offensive,” she was taken away to an undisclosed location.

The human toll was compounded by a blatant breach of child protection protocols: officers took the mother away while leaving her three minor children, aged 4 and 15, behind without any 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 she was being held.

State security charges and rights trampled

Only after a gruelling ordeal did Enoch Afoakwa finally locate his client, who had been transferred to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Accra. The lawyer denounced abusive interrogation methods, saying the nurse was repeatedly pressured to give testimony without her legal counsel present.

When she was brought before Circuit Court One, the case took a sharply political turn. Prosecutors alleged a conspiracy to “overthrow the government” in collusion with a virtual intermediary — a charge the defence dismissed as outlandish, pointing out that the prosecution failed to provide any charge sheet 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 violation of constitutional safeguards.

The majority’s awkward silence and the institutional stakes

The shockwaves from the case reach all the way to Parliament, where the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) majority and its legal figures — such as MP and lawyer Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah — are under mounting pressure from civil society and human rights organisations. While some MPs defend the firmness of institutions on national security matters, the public is asking where the line falls between fighting crime and weaponising the justice system for political intimidation.

Faced with growing protests from the medical profession and civil liberties groups, the court adjourned proceedings and ordered the prosecution to formalise its charges. The case now goes far beyond the individual fate of Ms Awiti — it has become the ultimate test of Ghana’s democratic resilience against the temptations of state arbitrariness.

By Pierre Tchuente — Security and Policy Analyst