For years it remained a rumour, and at worst a suspicion, that the telephones of certain individuals in Ghana, mainly politicians, were being bugged.
Now, however, a dramatic ”confession” by two journalists that they have the capacity to do it — and, indeed, have been doing it — has triggered an uproar in the West African country.
”This is a worrying development,” said Kofi Totobi Quakyi, security coordinator under former president Jerry Rawlings’s government, on Friday.
Claims by the two journalists that they have been listening to the telephone conversations of Rawlings, who has staged two successful coups and ruled Ghana for 19 years, have pushed the police to launch an investigation.
The caused has generated a heated and passionate debate about the illegal intrusion into the privacy of individuals and the flouting of their human rights.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), which Rawlings founded in 1992 when he prepared the country for democratic rule, wasted no time in demanding the police investigation.
Some members of the public feel that the journalists could only be bluffing about their capacity to bug phones. However, others, especially those in the NDC, believe the claims confirm their suspicions.
Kweku Baako, a fierce anti-Rawlings journalist and managing editor of the Crusading Guide, admits to monitoring Rawlings and his team.
”I am not bluffing,” Baako told an Accra-based radio station. ”The point is if I suspect that somebody is engaged in a criminal or subversive activity, I am allowed by our [Ghana Journalist Association] ethics as a journalist to use means other than straightforward ones to acquire information.
”I have put in place over the years a machinery within the ex-president’s own outfit, when I came to the conclusion that those characters are subversive and are engaged in activities that could destabilise the state and take away the collective freedoms of Ghanaians.
”Some of them are human beings, some are gadgets and on that basis I activate them if I want to get the appropriate information at the appropriate time,” former journalist of the year Baako said.
Earlier, deputy editor of the pro-government Vanguard newspaper Frank Fordjour also said the newspaper has the capacity to intercept telephone conversations in the country.
At least two of the four cellphone companies have dismissed the claims and denied that their equipment is being used to bug phones. However, these are worrying developments that the security agencies have to address and put the mind of citizens at ease, they said.
Phone-bugging is a crime in Ghana and under the laws of the country it can only be ordered by a high-court judge.
But is the ability to bug outside the means of journalists? The NDC believes this is not the first time the issue of phone-tapping opposition politicians has come up and says it is uneasy about the claims.
Haruna Iddrisu, minority spokesperson for communications in Parliament, said Parliament considers the tapping and silence of the government on the issue as amounting to condoning the illegal, criminal and unconstitutional act, an accusation promptly dismissed by the government, which said it is up to the police to investigate.
Information Minister Totobi Quakyi said the national security agency has acquired an electronic gadget that could cripple communication within a certain radius to protect dignitaries, but has a secondary feature with a capability to tap phone calls.
The Ghana Journalists’ Association (GJA) has frowned on claims of bugging by its members, saying that any information-gathering involving clandestine means such as eavesdropping or recording of private communication is unethical.
”Such methods of gathering information not only violate the privacy of the individual, but are also criminal,” GJA president Adjoa Yeboa-Afari said.
She said under its code of ethics, information, photography and illustration are to be obtained only by ”straightforward means”.
But are the journalists listening and are they the only people who are engaged in such clandestine operations, given new technologies in the market? It is up to Ghana’s security agency to unravel whether Big Brother is really listening. — Sapa-DPA