Barker-Vormawor denied bail, remanded for two weeks

The Ashaiman District Court has remanded #FixTheCountry Convener Oliver Barker-Vormawor, into custody police custody after being dragged to court on charges of treason felony.

The private legal practitioner was arraigned before the Ashaiman District Court on Monday, February 14, after his arrest on Friday.

He was arrested for a Facebook post, said to incite a coup d’etat against the government.

The court presided over by Her Honour Eleanor Barnes denied the private legal practitioner bail and remanded him to reappear in court on Monday, February 28.

The bail denial was due to the gravity of the offence but the court granted access to his family and lawyer between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm each day for the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, Mr Barker-Vormawor has been on a hunger strike since his arrest shortly after arriving in Ghana from the United Kingdom.

Mr Barker-Vormawor had posted about a coup on his Facebook page following recent discussions about the proposed 1.75% Electronic Transaction Levy (E-levy).

“If this E-Levy passes after this cake bullshit, I will do the coup myself. Useless Army!” Barker-Vormawor said in one of the posts.

In another post, he said: “Okay, let’s try again. If this E-Levy still passes after this cake bullshit, then may God….Help us to resist oppressor’s rule, With all our will and might for evermore.
Useless Army. Anaa, the value is the same?”

He has been cited for several other controversial posts.

Consequently, a section of Ghanaians who found his comments distasteful poured out on social media to call the Ghana Police Service to arrest him.

#FixTheCountry describes itself as a non-partisan, non-aligned civic movement by Ghanaian youths for Ghana.

#FixTheCountry was birthed in 2021 via online protests after the government announced price hikes in fuel and telecommunication services.

The price increase was happening at a time of frequent power.

The protesters held the view that President Akufo-Addo and his appointees had failed in addressing the needs of Ghanaians.

Other concerns highlighted by the angry social media users included high taxes, unemployment, dilapidated health system, high accommodation rate, poor road networks, and general hardships.

The group subsequently held a series of demonstrations and continued their online protests against government policies they believed were inimical to ordinary Ghanaians.

Most recently,  #FixTheCountry submitted a petition to President Nana Akufo-Addo demanding the head of the EC Chairperson, Jean Mensa, over the inability of the Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi and Likpe (SALL) residents to vote for a representative in parliament.

Currently, SALL, which is in the Guan District, has no representation in parliament.

In the petition, Mr Barker-Vormawor had argued that the conduct of the EC officials in the SALL matter “meets the threshold of stated misbehaviour and, or incompetence as required under Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution for the removal of these officials”.

#FixTheCountry insisted that the actions and inactions of the EC boss caused the people of SALL to lose their fundamental human rights.

There were 46 signatories to the petition, including residents of SALL.