"I was a Political prisoner"
Odinga Odinga Lumumba, the 60-year old Belizean pal of ex-President Rawlings who was deported from Ghana in January this year has told his countrymen that he plans to sue the Government of Ghana at an International Court for violating his human rights and keeping him as a political prisoner for 18 months.

According to Mr Odinga, when the Ghana government locked him up in June 2001, he was never taken to court, never tried, never given a chance to answer to allegations against him and never convicted but locked up in an old British dungeons as a political detainee with 26 common criminals.

In a combination of security reports and exclusive interviews, Ex-President Rawlings told his countrymen that it was because Odinga was involved with him that he was imprisoned on framed up allegations that he planned to oust the new President, J. A. Kufuor.

According to Odinga, while he was serving time in an old British slave dungeon, he had a tough battle against Malaria, Typhoid and Scabies. He said he was allowed to receive food from his loved ones and was treated when he fell ill by a Ghanaian medic trained in Cuba.

Even though Odinga admits that he wasn’t physically tortured, he narrated what he called the “mental affliction” he had to face. He said he would surely sue the Government of Ghana in an International Court. “I was a political prisoner in the true sense of the word”, he told his countrymen.

Intelligence information gathered by The Chronicle newspaper indicate that Odinga Lumumba used to be called Wilhelm Buller, until he changed his name in 1981.

He was first deported from Ghana to Belize in 1980 after being accused of involving himself in a coup d’etat “without justification”. He however decided to return to Ghana in 1988 and was said have been in the country for 10 years as a Guerilla fighter.