The lawmaker was nearly arrested by the police on Monday, October 25, 2021, when he led some constituents to demonstrate over the poor condition of roads in some communities.
In chaotic scenes captured on video, the protestors stood up against the police to shield Sosu from being dragged into a waiting police vehicle.
Speaking on the incident in an October 25, Citi News interview, Sosu said that the police had no legitimacy to arrest him as he and the demonstrators breached no law.
He detailed that a member of the police team deployed for the protest had invited him for questioning which he rejected.
Sosu recounts that he told the police officer that a meeting of the leadership of the Parliamentary, Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee was scheduled for 11 am on Monday and that he had to rush to Parliament after the protest.
This answer was not well received by the officer who insisted on taking him to the Regional Police Commander.
The misunderstanding led to a scuffle between him and the police officers which caught the eye of the demonstrating youth who resisted the police attempt to arrest him.
Sosu said the police acted in contravention with the Standing Orders of Parliament and that privileges due him as an MP who was undertaking a parliamentary activity were denied.
He added that their actions amounted to contempt of Parliament so when the house resumes today, October 26, 2021, he will initiate the process to haul the officers involved before the Privileges Committee of Parliament.
“The police did not have any basis. We gave them a letter of protest and demonstration. Protest can be done in all kinds of ways. Usually when there is a protest what the police do is to try to use crowd control measures to ward the people off. When the people resist, that is when you arrest and in this case, I was together with the police and at any point we tried to calm them,’” he said.
“In a democracy, the laws must be enforced. Article 117 of the 1992 constitution makes it very clear that no civil or criminal proceedings will be executed against a sitting member of Parliament, particularly when he’s on parliamentary duty and I was on parliamentary duty with my constituents. I told the police that I was going to do something in Parliament so they knew exactly where I was going.
“What they did, the attempts and destruction of my vehicle clearly violates Order 28 of the Standing Orders and it makes clear that the actions of the police amount to contempt of parliament. I’m serving a petition to the Speaker dragging regional operations commander and divisional commander to the privileges committee so that they will come to parliament to answer to the committee,” he said.
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