The late Chief Justice, I.K Abban was nearly assassinated by a former head of state, Gen. I.K Acheampong in 1978.
Speaking at the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) yesterday, a civil rights activist, Mr. Kwame Appiah Boateng said Justice Abban disclosed this to him in a letter, which he tendered at the Commission.
Mr. Boateng said Justice Abban who was then the Electoral Commissioner was coerced by Acheampong’s regime to rig the elections during the UNIGOV period when he (Acheampong) realized that he was losing.
He said the late Justice Abban refused to comply with the directive and became an enemy of the regime. He said Justice Abban told him he was trailed on several occasions to be assassinated by state security operatives but survived.
He said Abban informed him that his suspicion that the regime wanted to eliminate him heightened when he survived a motor accident with a military vehicle.
He said Justice Abban told him he went into hiding at an archbishop’s house until tempers calmed down. Mr. Boateng who lives in Los Angeles, USA told the Commission that he petitioned them on an incident which happened to him in 1978 concerning a soldier who manhandled him without any provocation.
He said the soldier beat him with the butt of a gun after he had gone to register as a member of the People’s Movement for Freedom and Justice at Kumasi.
He said he had another brush with a soldier who molested traders in 1978. Mr. Boateng said he confronted the soldier for unlawfully seizing the wares of market women and later sold them for his personal gain.
He said the soldier punched him and went to ransack the store of his grandmother. He said the soldiers came looking for him the following day but couldn’t see him.
Mr. Boateng said a man bearing his name was mistaken for him and beaten up by the soldiers.
Hearing continues today.
Source: GhanaWeb
