Baffour Awuah Arrest Warrant, Ghana Jollof & Crocodile Skin
By Anonymous · 30 September 2026 · Politics
In 2015, our President told Ghanaians in Botswana that he had "dead goat syndrome." A goat already slaughtered, he explained, no longer fears the knife. Let the strikes come; he was beyond fright. The nation laughed, the opposition printed T-shirts, and the goat took up permanent residence in our political vocabulary. Eleven years, one defeat and one comeback later, the goat has risen, and upgraded. Speaking to Ghanaians in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last Friday, he said he had been insulted, vilified and voted out, and so "this skin is a crocodile skin." Insult him, he says; he doesn't mind. I confess I was moved. From goat to crocodile is serious evolution; Darwin himself would ask for the transcript. And consider the market value: a goat ends up in light soup, but a crocodile ends up as a handbag in a Milan shop window. From the chop bar to the boutique. Ayekoo.
While the crocodile basked at the UN, Salomey Baffoe Awiti, a senior nursing officer and mother of three from Techiman, sat in custody over the Ghana Jollof TikTok affair. She was picked up near her home in Techiman and brought all the way to the Adenta Circuit Court in Accra, where she pleaded not guilty to abetting the publication of false news. Under our own Criminal Offences Act, that is a misdemeanour. Not treason. Not armed robbery. A misdemeanour. Yet bail was refused at Adenta, and refused again at the High Court, on the theory that a cyber case carries a risk of interference with witnesses.
Her lawyer, Manhyia South MP Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, walked out of one of those hearings and found a plain-clothes EOCO officer planted at his car door, telling him to follow her. He asked for ID. He asked for a warrant. By his account, neither appeared. He offered to drive himself; she insisted on their vehicle. What followed was pushing, shouting, another lawyer complaining of assault, and half of Accra recording on their phones until the honourable member drove off. EOCO said it pulled back to protect public safety. Osagyefo, the public was never in danger. The only casualty was EOCO's dignity, and it died on camera.
A week later, the paperwork finally arrived: a High Court warrant for his arrest over his law firm's work for SIC Life. EOCO says he ignored two invitations in February; he says he replied, referred the matter to Parliament, and his firm cooperated three times. No one is above the law, and a warrant is exactly how this should have started. But we performed the stunt first and held the rehearsal after. And after seven quiet months, those February letters woke up just as he became the loudest voice defending Salomey. Perhaps it is coincidence. But coincidence, Osagyefo, is a shy animal. It rarely shows up in public with a camera crew.
Now look closely at who is free in this story and who is not.
Ghana Jollof herself, the woman whose videos started all this, is in the UK, declared wanted by the police and still posting, hitting the airwaves harder than ever. The authorities themselves say she is abroad. So the net closed on the nearest person it could reach.
If the talk making the rounds is true, the Adenta judge who remanded Salomey is now in Rome, doing as the Romans do. I hope the pasta is good and the weather kind.
And today, the High Court pushed the case to October 5 because the judges are away at their association's conference. I do not begrudge judges a conference. Even justice needs its workshops and its lunch packs.
So let us count. The TikToker is free. The judge is on holiday. The bench is in conference. The President is in New York wearing crocodile skin. Only the nurse is in jail.
If Salomey's did wrong, let the court try her, quickly and fairly. Grant her bail with conditions, take her passport, make her report to the police every week. There are a hundred ways to secure a misdemeanour trial without keeping a mother in a cell while the principal suspect records videos abroad.
The President says he doesn't mind being insulted, and he has also said arrests over online talk deserve caution. Good. Then let the head speak, because it is the tail that keeps biting. The President has crocodile skin. Salomey has only her own, and it is behind bars.
So long,
Ato_KD