It was late afternoon on 28th February 2005 when Choice FM, then Ghana’s leading talk show station announced that Ghana’s most wanted armed robber,Ataa Ayi, had been nabbed.
Instinctively, the question that bugged many was “who achieved such monumental feat?” It was an answer that perhaps, only staff of the station were privy to, ACP Nathan Kofi Boakye Of course, the decorated police officer had himself phoned the station to break the news.
ACP Kofi Boakye would later continue with his excellence in the Service to a rank as high as Commissioner of Police (COP) and gracefully retired on the rank last week at age 60.
His next legitimate office would have been the ultimate Inspector General of Police (IGP), which unfortunately, he never got. He was then the Greater Accra Regional Police Commander when he single-handedly, crafted the Ataa Ayi episode. COP Kofi Boakye then extended his tentacles to the Ashanti Region, his home region and skillfully arrested another one of the most notorious criminals of our time—2PM.
The Overlord of Asanteman, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, was so happy to have Kofi Boakye in his jurisdiction.
2PM was so slippery and elusive to many security operatives who had attempted to nab him. The mastery and calculated moves by Kofi Boakye and his gang, to arrest 2PM appeared to the notorious criminal a huge joke.
That was his reaction when he first got wind that a certain new Ashanti Regional Police Commander has primed him as his hit target. “He hasn’t heard of me. Won’t you go warning him? He bragged to associates and related groups. Perhaps, those hangars-on also failed to advice 2PM properly. Kofi Boakye is a typical Ashtown boy who knew the Asante terrain perhaps, more than 2PM and his hoodlums. Ashtown, is a suburb in Kumasi.
The Ashanti monster had reduced his Abuakwa residential area to his personal territory where none dared report or come close to him, except his trainees and other protégé robbers. There is the myth about the identity of 2PM and he confirmed after his capture by the then Ashanti Regional Police Commander: “Before my arrest, I never believed any human born of a woman could arrest me because of my involvement in mysticism.”
In the case of Ataa Ayi, he was captured by COP Boakye and his boys at Teshie, a suburb of Accra while drying his clothes. Before then, Ataa Ayi had been characterized as Ghana’s most wanted and notorious criminal. That was a time Raymond Ataa Ayi had made plans to travel to Germany. In the words of Kofi Boakye, “with the arrest of Ataa Ayi, a whole generation of armed robbers has been wiped off.” Ataa Ayi had created many of his kinds who looked up to him for inspiration and direction.
Many of Ataa Ayi’s trainees have been nabbed by then ACP Kofi Boakye and so with the main architect arrested, the very foundation that nurtured robbers was collapsed. Before he eventually met his waterloo, Ataa Ayi had prosecuted one of the deadliest operations by robbing a businesswoman, Dora Kumi, of $65,000.00 and GHC4500 on February 5th, 2003. Ataa Ayi was given a 100-year jail sentence for his prolonged robbery activities and 40 years for that singular robbery he unleashed on the businesswoman.
In the case of 2PM, he claimed to have fortified himself so much in an overseas country that he neither feared gun or any form of ammunition nor the men in Black. He thus returned to Ghana to establish a notorious gang who he trained in the art of robbery under gun point. Again, 2PM had almost all the top-notch of the Ashanti Police Service at his beck and call. That means any attempt to arrest him would be communicated to him before the act could be carried out.
As the newly posted Police Commander in Ashanti Region, Kofi Boakye managed to gather every available information on 2PM and therefore used the materials from his search to outwit the Ashanti Region terror. In the words of 2PM, he was caught unawares by Kofi Boakye’s men who were totally unknown to him. He declared: “I was arrested at Abuakwa by some unknown police officers. When my informant called to inform me about the operation, I was baffled seeing such young and new officers trying to pry into my privacy.”
“Who are these small-small policemen who refused to call me before invading my abode? That was how boastful and proud I was. I was simply untouchable, I thought.” He then decided to have his revenge on the police officers who had been insolent to “His Lordship” 2PM. But Kofi Boakye and is team had other plans. They surrounded the entire Abuakwa township and before 2PM could think of unleashing his venom on the police officers, he had unbeknown to him, been caught in the Kofi Boakye web with the COP himself coming face-to-face with the rugged criminal. He had no choice than to surrender.
Today, Kofi bows out of the Police Service with full honours after occupying almost every key position in the Service except for the Inspector General of Police position which but for political reasons, would have been an icing on his beautiful career that came ending early this month.
