Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., has likened the narration by the Ghana Police Service on how the Consular General and Head of Mission of Estonia to Ghana, Nabil Makram was rescued from kidnappers as one of the infamous Kweku Ananse folklores.

The Consular General and Head of Mission of Estonia to Ghana, Nabil Makram Basbous, was rescued by the Special Weapons and Ammunition Tactics (SWAT) Unit of the Accra Regional Police Command a few days ago.

The 61-year-old diplomat was kidnapped by Nigerians while embarking on a health walk within his neighbourhood at Wangara in Labone, Accra; and was kept hostage in a house at Lashibi, a suburb of Tema.

The kidnappers were reportedly awaiting a ransom when police stormed the house.

A search conducted in the house revealed Hyundai Elantra No. GE 8922 – 17; believing to be the car used in the kidnapping and was parked in the compound and also a Honda motorbike with registration number M-19-GR 507, and one pistol were found in the house.

The Police on April 18, 2019 around 8:00pm followed up on the intelligence they had picked about some Nigerians with suspicious characters as they reportedly stay at home all day but go out only at night from a house located at Vivian Farm, Lashibi in Tema.

Efforts to enter the house were met with resistance from the occupants but police insisted and in the process three occupants scaled over a fence wall at the back and escaped.

While police were conducting a search at the scene, the Consular General and Head of Mission of Estonia to Ghana came out from one of the rooms in the house.

Taking into account the narration given by the police, Kwesi Pratt, a panel member on Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji weekend talk show said the Police account is ‘absolutely shocking’.

“If the Police was minded to have approached this site which could be a criminal site to effect arrest or to do a search, it would appear that the most sensible thing they could have done was to surround the building before penetration,” he chided.

He however demanded to know “how come that the criminals managed to scale the back wall and run away. It simply doesn’t make sense at all and it must worry all of us who want to see security services doing their work diligently”.

“The Police went to the site of the crime and the kidnappers allegedly scaled the back wall and run away and they found the Diplomat who had been kidnapped in the house; this sounds like Kwaku Ananse story,” he mocked.

He stressed that “Ghana cannot develop in this atmosphere of insecurity”; adding that the country has witnessed new forms of heinous crime over the last couple of years as "in recent times, kidnapping for ransom which is not normal and regular in Ghana has become the order of the day".

“The intensity with which these crimes are growing must be exceedingly worrying for anybody who wants to see Ghana developed,” he decried.