Once the line between an ‘invitation’ and a ‘detention’ becomes blurry, like in the case of former National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) CEO, Kofi Nkansah, the law stops protecting ordinary people and starts behaving like something you bargain for.
Development Diaries reports that the government of Ghana has dismissed claims that the arrest of former National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) CEO, Kofi Nkansah, was politically motivated.
Nkansah has been charged by the National Investigations Bureau (NIB) with publishing false news following his comments on Sompa 106.5 FM regarding alleged irregularities in the awarding of overseas scholarships.
Once the difference between an ‘invitation’ and ‘detention’ becomes blurry, the law stops being a guide and starts becoming a negotiation. And the moment the law becomes a negotiation for the powerful, it becomes a trap for everybody else.
The confusion began when two contradictory stories hit the public at the same time. Media reports claimed Nkansah had been ‘picked up’ by NIB, citing social media posts and describing him as being in custody to substantiate his allegations.
Nkansah and his lawyers fired back, insisting he had not been arrested or detained, but had voluntarily reported to the bureau and cooperated fully.
Then came another twist: several outlets reported that NIB had conducted a search of his home. Instead of clarity, citizens were fed a mix of ‘picked up’, ‘not arrested’, ‘voluntarily went’, ‘in grips’, and ‘home searched’.
At the heart of the matter are two institutional failures. The first is due process because when a security or intelligence agency summons a citizen, basic questions, such as whether it was an invitation, an arrest, or a detention, must have straightforward answers.
The second failure is accountability in scholarship governance. The allegation that state-funded scholarships can be bought is not small. If true, it means public opportunity has become private property.
But even a legitimate investigation can lose credibility if wrapped in ambiguity. A process that appears punitive, political, or selective undermines the justice it claims to uphold.
Security agencies are powerful institutions, and ambiguity can easily become a tool, intentionally or not. Even when rights are not violated, confusion alone can create harm.
So citizens quickly learn that speaking publicly about wrongdoing may lead to being ‘invited’, ‘summoned’, or ‘picked up’ in ways that are never clearly defined.
That kind of atmosphere kills whistleblowing and rewards silence.
Responsibility, therefore, sits clearly with specific actors. The NIB must clarify its process and rebuild public confidence. The presidency, having directed the investigation, must ensure legality and proportionality.
As for the parliament and rights institutions, they must enforce guardrails. For their part, scholarship bodies, including GETFund, must open their books, publish criteria, and welcome independent audits, because the rule of law means the state cannot use uncertainty as punishment, and equity means due process cannot be a privilege reserved for those who can afford lawyers and loud hashtags.
The real danger is that once due process becomes optional, it stops being a right and becomes a favour, and favours are unreliable.
What happens to activists, journalists, or ordinary citizens who cannot rally trending hashtags or legal teams? If a former agency head can get lost in this fog, imagine what happens to those without titles.
This is why Ghana must insist on concrete steps. NIB owes citizens a simple, lawful explanation of what actually happened. It must also publish a clear protocol for invitations, interviews, rights access, search procedures, and custody limits.
What citizens can do now is keep asking the process questions; push rights groups and the bar association to publish clear due-process checklists; and demand a scholarship audit that goes beyond ‘he said, she said’ and focuses on rules, evidence, and equity.
