The lead counsel for Salomey Awitti Baffoe, the Techiman nurse remanded over the “Ghana Jollof” TikTok videos, says the police case against her is “founded on lies”.
Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah made the claim on Adom TV’s Nnawotwi Yi, a day after the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), COP Lydia Yaako Donkor, held a press briefing on the case.
Police say Ms Baffoe assisted in spreading videos produced by Barbara Asantewaa Kodua, who is believed to be based in the United Kingdom, by recruiting other persons. She was arrested in a joint operation involving the National Signals Bureau and the Police, and put before the court on a charge of abetment of crime, to wit, publication of false news. She was remanded into police custody and is due to reappear on 30 September.
Mr Awuah told host Abena Pokuaa Ahwenee that his team will answer in public whatever the police say in public.
“Whatever they say in the public we will respond to it because we’re not going to allow them to soil the image of our client in public. So if they come to lie we’ll also come out to explain it,” he said.
He said the police told the court one of Ms Kodua’s videos “bothers on overthrowing the government”, but he questioned whether the video played at the briefing shows her calling for that.
“Did you hear [Ghana] Jollof calling for the overthrow of government in the video they played yesterday?” he asked.
He said the police case is that Ms Kodua “sensationalized or told lies about an attempted coup at Jubilee House which caused fear and panic”, which in his words “is not a coup that was being planned”. That, he said, is why the judge ruled the matter bothered on national security and ordered Ms Baffoe remanded.
Mr Awuah said he told the judge that “if the issue indeed bothered on national security, national security wouldn’t have released [Ms Baffoe] to CID, they would have kept her in their installation for investigation”.
“For them to have released her to the CID it means that there was no national security element,” he said. The judge disagreed and still ordered her remanded.
He also challenged the charge sheet, saying his team was not informed when their client was being taken to court and did not receive a copy.
“When you were taking her to court, you didn’t even inform her lawyers, we heard about it from the grapevine and followed you people there and when we even got to the court you didn’t want to allow us get involved in the case so you didn’t even give us a copy of your charge sheet but the judge had one,” he said.
He said the charge sheet states that Ms Baffoe lives in Accra and committed the offence within the Adentan circuit.
“The police lied that [she] stays in Accra and committed the crime within the Adentan circuit,” he said.
He said she should have been arraigned before a court in the Techiman circuit.
On the alleged link to the videos, Mr Awuah said his junior lawyers reviewed the Ghana Jollof page after the briefing and found that a video she posted had, as of August 2025, over 30,000 views and over 500 shares.
“Are you telling me that Salomey recruited all those people?” he asked.
Even if the police account is true, he said, “does it mean I can be arrested for a crime my friend has committed?”
He said the case shows how desperate the police are to arrest Ms Kodua, and that they are “looking for anything to hang on”.
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