A security analyst has suggested that the shock and psychological toll of facing serious criminal allegations may have contributed to the sudden illness of Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, during interrogation by Ghana’s Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO).
Speaking on The Big Issue on Channel One TV over the weekend, security consultant Richard Kumadoe described the incident as “unsurprising,” noting that the gravity of the allegations alone could trigger such a response, particularly if there’s a sense that the accusations are valid.
“For the fact that you are Chairman Wontumi and for the fact that you have been arrested, and you are not sleeping in your house, you are likely to fall sick,” Kumadoe explained. “If you know that many of these charges are true, you will fall sick.”
Among the accusations Chairman Wontumi is reportedly facing are fraud, money laundering, and cross-border crimes. While EOCO has yet to release full details of the case, Deputy Attorney General Alfred Tuah-Yeboah recently confirmed that investigations are ongoing into financial and transnational irregularities involving the NPP regional chair.
Kumadoe, who has decades of experience in intelligence and security advisory roles, said the fear of imprisonment, especially in facilities run by Ghana’s Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), can have a crushing psychological impact.
“Knowing very well that you can be kept under the walls of the BNI, which are higher and thicker than your house walls, you will fall sick,” he remarked, adding that the culture of high-stakes politics in Ghana places additional strain on individuals under scrutiny.
Chairman Wontumi, a key figure in NPP party’s political machinery in the Ashanti Region, has not yet spoken publicly since his reported hospitalisation.
