The Special Assistant to the former President, Victor Smith has accused the Editor-in-Chief of the Crusading Guide, Kweku Baako Jnr of collaborating with the National Security apparatus.

According to Mr Smith, he was surprised at how Kweku Baako was seen on the tarmac the Accra International Airport last Saturday, in the company of a national security operative as part of an advance welcoming party of the deputy Chairman of the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) regime, Major (rtd) Kojo Boakye Djan.

Mr Smith said he was at the Airport to receive former President Rawlings who was arriving on a British Airways flight. “Whilst waiting to receive the former President, a Toyota Land Cruiser came to the gangway and out came Kweku Baako and what looked like a national security operative,” Mr Smith said.

In an interview with the Independent newspaper, Mr Smith noted that the former President passed Kweku Baako before realizing who he was and asked why Kweku Baako was at the Airport gangway.

Continuing, Mr Smith said he then left for the VIP area of the Airport with the former President and whilst there, “the Land Cruiser that picked Boakye Djan passed with Kweku Baako. Is it everybody who is allowed to go on the tarmac and as far as the gangway to receive people?”

Mr Smith said the occurrence on Saturday has exposed the collaboration between the national security apparatus and Kweku Baako, an avowed Rawlings critic.

Baako said, “Victor Smith was at the Airport to welcome the former President, to whom the state is obliged to offer protocol and I perfectly understand why he had every right or reason to be where I saw him”.

“Within this content, I thought that, he, with a little bit of circumspection and charity, if indeed Boakye Djan was on that flight, would have realized that Boakye-Djan was Deputy Head of State and significantly at one stage Acting Head of State of Ghana when Rawlings traveled to Cuba during the AFRC days”, Baako noted.

Baako said he, being the local representative of Major Boakye Djan sought clearance to be on the tarmac and thankfully, his request was granted. “There are non-Ghanaians citizens or expatriates working for even non-Ghanaian organisations whose local representatives have been given clearance at one time or the other to pick people from the tarmac, so why should Victor Smith make such a claim when the former President’s former Deputy is accorded this privilege once in 22 years”.