The Rambo-style invasion of Adabraka-based Citi FM by seven heavily armed police officers to arrest a terrified female journalist, Zoe Abu-Baidoo, on Tuesday, 11 May 2021, feeds into complaints that there is a resurgence of a culture of silence under the Akufo-Addo government, the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said.

The party’s Deputy Communication Officer, Mr Godwin Ako Gunn, told Class91.3FM’s Kofi Oppong Asamoah on 12Live, the mid-day news on Wednesday, 12 May that the police sank to the abyss with their action.

“This country is of age. We have gone through dark days. We have gone through difficult times. We, as a country, believe that there is more into some of these things”, he said.

“This is something to feed into the mindset that many are saying that we are now going back to the culture of silence”, he explained.

To him, the police could have gone about things in a more professional manner.

“For instance, if a media person working in a recognised media institutions errs – let’s even admit that he has erred because nothing, so far, has been proven that this reporter from Citi FM has done anything wrong – this is a recognised radio station that executives or directors of this media house can be called and asked to provide these two reporters to answer questions”, he noted.

“How difficult will this be?” Mr Gunn wondered, adding: “But look at this Rambo-style; if not for the purposes of intimidation or to shut them up [then I don’t know]. But it is unfortunate”.

Ms Abu-Baidoo was arrested for allegedly conspiring with her colleague, Caleb Kudah, to “secretly film” the compound of the Ministry of National Security.

Mr Kudah was arrested while filming the premises of the ministry.

He allegedly sent the videos to Ms Abu-Badoo via his phone, prompting the war-like invasion of the media house by the armed police officers to effect the arrest of the female journalist.

Both journalists were later released.