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I worked with persons who ordered arrest of Ntim Fordjour – Nitiwil

Former Minister of Defense, Dominic Nitiwul, has revealed that he worked with the individuals who ordered the arrest of Assin South MP, Rev John Ntim Fordjour, expressing shock and disappointment at their actions.

“Personally, he was my senior. We worked with him. In fact, we gave him a very sensitive job, one way in government. And so, there are some things that I would not have expected that they would do,” Nitiwul admitted during an interview on Joy News’ PM Express on April 9, 2025.

He noted that he was surprised to learn his colleague had given the order when he visited the NIB office to verify the facts. “But be as it may, it was really true when I got there that the NIB had actually sent people to the place”.

Nitiwul recounted receiving a distress call about the situation: “I got a call from one of my colleagues that the ranking member of the Defence and Interior Committee’s house has been surrounded by people suspected to be from the NIB, ostensibly to arrest him. A lot of police officers. I counted over 15 of them.”

Upon arriving at the scene, he described his motivation: “When I got there, I didn’t believe that was the case. But I just thought I should go there and find out. Also, being the immediate past defence minister, I thought that I could be one of the people who could calm situations down if there’s a need. Truly, when I went, I knew a lot of the principal people who were there. I’ve worked with some of them.”

“The first question I asked was, ‘What do they have? Did they have a warrant? They said no. The gentleman who led the operation actually said that he’s a senior person. That alone is enough for him – his face is a warrant in itself,” Nitiwul narrated. However, legal experts present disagreed with this rationale, emphasizing that seniority doesn’t justify arrests without warrants.

“We had a lot of lawyers there who clearly disagreed and told them that you cannot say just because you’re a senior person within the NIB, your face alone is a warrant to arrest a Member of Parliament, or any other citizen for that matter. They all have rights,” he explained.

Nitiwul also questioned the conduct of NIB operatives, noting, “Some of the NIB officials, those who were not police officers, covered their faces. For whatever reason, I cannot tell why they did that.” He stressed that lawful arrests require clear legal justification, citing the absence of an arrest warrant as a significant issue. “If the police come to say that we believe that we have reasonable suspicion, and based on that, we are arresting you, that’s a different matter. But we just asked them a simple question: Do you have an arrest warrant to arrest him? They said no,” Nitiwul recounted.