Osei Kwame, reporter of the Kumasi Mail, an independent weekly newspaper based in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city was on July 28, 2008 arrested and briefly held hostage in the Chief palace by Nana Osei Bonsu, chief of Abira, a town in the Kwabre District of the Ashanti Region.
 
Kwame told Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent that he had gone  to the Chief’s Palace to check on a story that alleged that  Nana Bonsu had paid an amount of 150 GH cedis (approximately US$150) as an appeasement fee to one of his subjects, for allegedly  sleeping with the subject’s wife. 

The correspondent said after one and half hours, Nana Bonsu and two of his bodyguards bundled Osei into the Chiefs car and drove him to the police station.

Kwame said a police officer at the station ordered his release since he had acted “within the law”.

When MFWA contacted Nana Bonsu, he confirmed detaining him, but declined to comment further. 

Media Foundation for West Africa