The family of the late social media activist, Ibrahim Mahammed [Kaaka Macho], has described the three-member committee that probed the Ejura disturbances in June 2021 as a mouthpiece of fake news.
The family indicated that there are loop-holes in the findings of the Committee as contained in the report submitted to the government, hence, their disagreement with the report.
According to them, the Committee, which comprised the Justice of the Court of Appeal, George Kingsley Koomson, Security Expert, Dr Vladimir Antwi Danso and the Executive Director of Penplusbyte, a civil society organisation, Juliet Amoah, failed to do due diligence on the matter.
Addressing the media on Monday, the family spokesperson, Abdul Nafiu Mohammed, said the Committee based its conclusions on testimony by an individual identified as Aminu Mohammed and run with it.
“The Committee’s failure to perform the most basic due diligence on this story is baffling, the result was that the Committee became the mouthpiece of fake news and a senseless conspiracy theory,” he said.
He said the family is disappointed in the Committee as it also failed to subject the testimony of Aminu “who they [the committee] described as a friend of Kaaka and resident of Ejura, to even the most basic scrutiny.”
“In fact, in reaching their conclusion, they relied mostly on testimonies of one Aminu Mohammed, an individual who the state chose to hear behind closed doors.
“Clearly, this was somebody whose testimony was intended as a wow factor and so was broadly shelved from broader public scrutiny, yet his [testimony] was the only evidence the Committee cited as confirming their conclusion that Kaaka was killed because of a family feud,” he said.
The spokesperson also noted that the witness lived in Burkina Faso and was not in Ejura when Kaaka was killed or at the time of the Ejura disturbances.
“This individual had not even been in touch with Kaaka for at least the past 10 years,” he further stated.
Again, Abdul Nafiu Mohammed refuted the indication that there was bad blood between Kaaka and his brother, Idi and that Kaaka had caused his brother’s arrest for three days in 2020 as the witness had said.
“The individual claimed that Kaaka had caused the arrest of Idi sometime in 2020. According to the individual, Idi had been kept in Ejura police cells for about three days, and that he Aminu advised Kaaka to leave Idi in the cells for about a week,” he recalled.
He added: “The said Aminu even went on to allege that Kaaka’s mother had paid a bribe to the Ejura police to secure the release of Idi after the three days. He also claimed that Idi travelled to Nigeria soon after his release.”
Giving credence to their stance that the Committee did not do a thorough job, he said “despite this heavy remits of this individual’s statement, at no point did the supposed fact-finding committee seek to establish whether there was in fact, any record of arrest against Idi in 2020 or attempt to crosscheck with the police of any fanciful stories narrated to them.
“They did not even verify whether indeed Idi had travelled out of the country in 2020 as alleged by the said individual.”
The Committee, he further stated, decided to overlook the obvious absurdities in the testimony including the accusation of bribes, and corruption made against the Police Service and run with the individual’s statement.
“No attempt was made to collaborate, or independently establish any of the claims made by the said Aminu Mohammed,” he stressed.