Benjamin Agordzo (Rtd), the Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), has angrily refuted accusations that he was involved in a conspiracy to topple the Akufo-Addo administration and has never discussed such a plan with anybody.
ACP Agordzo detailed his encounters with Dr. Frederick Yao Mac-Palm and other accused individuals in an interview that aired on Citi TV’s Face to Face program, emphasizing that the claims were untrue.
Agordzo explained that he was introduced to Dr. Mac-Palm by phone as a member of an advocacy group that specialized in medical outreach, and that he had met her following an IDEG lecture.
“I knew Dr. Frederick Yao Mac-Palm [late Chief Executive Officer of Citadel Hospital] whom I met once, the others I had never seen or met. Even in their facts at the court, the prosecution peddled falsehood by saying that I knew Colonel Samuel Kodzo Gameli. And we had discussed the coup and then met Dr Mac-Palm, which were all false.
“It’s never true, and then they knew it was not true. First of all, we never plotted to overthrow the government. It was something I could never have done, and I will never do. I didn’t meet Dr Mac-Palm, nor did I meet him at his hospital. My first contact with Dr Mac-Palm was a WhatsApp call. Subsequently, after some WhatsApp chats, I got to know he was into medical outreach. I didn’t know him from anywhere,”
To host Umaru Sanda Amadu, he said.
ACP Agordzo said that the goal of Dr. Mac-Palm’s organization was to assist the underprivileged, which is why he joined.
“I knew it was a credible democracy group [Take Action Ghana], that’s why I joined. I first met him [late Dr Mac-Palm] physically the following year when I wanted to make my donation. The money they said we are using to sponsor the coup. Ghana is so cheap that we can use GHC2,000 to sponsor a coup.”
whether asked whether Dr. Mac-Palm had advised them to topple the government, he shot back,
“Never, the court didn’t find that evidence and there was no evidence. And they can never have any evidence because there was nothing like that. Nobody on the pages that I was, ever said anything about overthrowing the government.”
The senior police officer also denied instigating the populace to embark on a revolution, clarifying that he only expressed his opinion on the Arab Spring.
“The truth of the matter is that we are on a platform, we have been chatting on several issues and Dr Mac-Palm asked my opinion on something [Arab Spring] and I expressed it. In Ghana, I didn’t know until then that we have retrogressed our democracy to the point that a free opinion could be criminalised.
“I expressed my opinion that the symptoms of Arab Springs are already here. The things that caused the Arab Spring are already here – unemployment, other things. And I added that we better take steps so that these things do not happen in Ghana. That was not the first time I had said this,”
He was adamant.
In 2021, eight individuals, including the late Dr. Mac Palm and ACP Benjamin Agordzo, were charged with high treason and conspiracy to commit high treason.
On January 24, 2024, the High Court did, however, acquit ACP Benjamin Agordzo, while six other people were found guilty on accusations of high treason and conspiracy to conduct high treason.
The six people found guilty of organising a coup have been given hanging death sentences.
