‘You should be advising your client on how to spend less than 25 years in jail’ – Edudzi Tameklo tells Atta Akyea

The Acting Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Godwin Edudzi Tameklo, has refuted a claim by Samuel Atta Akyea, the lawyer of embattled former Director-General of the National Signals Bureau (NSB), Kwabena Adu-Boahene. Akyea argued that his client is protected from prosecution under the laws governing the bureau.

In a Facebook post shared on May 8, 2025, Edudzi Tameklo, who is also the Director of Legal Affairs for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), stated that the offences Adu-Boahene is accused of occurred before the enactment of the laws referenced by Atta Akyea, a former Member of Parliament for Akim Abuakwa South.

“I just read this statement by my learned senior, Samuel Atta Akyea, and I am here laughing. If you look at the particulars of the offences, you would notice that the offences happened in January and March 2020.

“Kindly look at the Security and Intelligence Act, 2020; it was assented to in October 2020. Clearly, at the time the accused person entered the contract with the Israeli company, this Act was not in existence,” he wrote.

Tameklo further challenged the validity of Akyea’s legal reasoning, “So how are you relying on this Act for your prior conduct? As lawyers, we have an ethical responsibility to advise our clients well. You don’t make life difficult for the client. Criminal defence is a special skill.”

He further pointed out that neither Adu-Boahene nor his lawyer has issued a direct denial of the substantive allegations against him.

“The case of the prosecution is simple. That you were the director of a state agency responsible for the soft side of national security. That in January 2020, you entered into a contract with an Israeli company to supply and install security equipment. That contemporaneously with this, you incorporated a company similar to the state agency but private.

“You diverted public funds directly into this private company. The basis of the prosecution’s case of stealing is because you moved the funds directly into your private company – appropriation. That the appropriation was done dishonestly,” the NPA CEO aaded.

Tameklo stressed that any payments made to Members of Parliament (MPs) after the alleged appropriation do not negate the dishonesty of the initial act.

“If you don’t understand the charges, how can you defend yourself? Alleged payments to MPs after the fact of the appropriation cannot negate the dishonesty associated with the appropriations. The alleged payments in the 2024 election, almost four years after the fact, is an afterthought. At this rate, your lawyers should be advising you on how to do less than 25 years,” he pointed out.

Tameklo’s remarks were in response to a letter from Atta Akyea to the National Security Coordinator, in which Akyea warned that prosecuting Adu-Boahene could have national security implications.

He also claimed the charges violated provisions of Ghana’s laws, including Act 1030 and Act 1040.

“Our client has instructed us that a cursory look at the case from the documents you inherited underscores the fact that the pith of the Hon. Attorney-General’s case are matters bothering on national security.

“Besides, the intended prosecution violates the Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, 2020 (Act 1030) and the National Signals Bureau Act, 2020 (Act 1040),” part of Atta Akyea’s letter read.

In a separate letter to the National Security Coordinator, Adu-Boahene denied stealing from the state.

He submitted a list of individuals and organisations he claimed to have paid the contested funds to, among them MPs, asserting that these payments were for national security purposes.

View Edudzi Tameklo’s post below: