Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UT Bank, Kofi Amoabeng, has shared his experience of reportedly being labelled a security risk by the government, following his bank’s closure in 2017, which led to complications in obtaining a US visa.
In an interview on TV3’s The Day Show with host Bella Mundi on 2 November 2023, he recounted the legal struggle to reclaim his passport for a medical check-up, as a case concerning his bank’s closure was/is in court.
“I wanted to go for a medical check-up right, and we go to court for them to release my passport to me. After up and down, up and down, the judge said ‘I don’t see how I would keep his passport, let him go and check himself and come back because after all if he dies the case would die’,” he explained.
Despite the court’s decision, Amoabeng faced visa denial at the American Embassy, a place he had frequented since the 80s. He later discovered that a letter from a government department had branded him a security risk.
“I went to the American Embassy, and I have been going to America since the 80s, the embassy refused me an entry visa. When I checked through the back door, there was a letter from some government department saying I was a security risk, or I shouldn’t be made to fly, even after the court had given me my passport,” he said.
Amoabeng attributed the actions against him to envy and vindictiveness within the government and state institutions. “What happens is that you have people who are envious, who are jealous, who are vindictive and they hide behind the institutions, they are like cockroaches actually, …so you will not see them, but you will know that they are causing havoc,” he said.
He continued to criticise the government for undermining state institutions by installing loyal figures. “And it is also sad because the government when they come into power, they compromise the state institutions, all. They change all the heads and they put their puppets, or their cronies, or their cohort or whatever, and they can really make you uncomfortable if they want to.”
While he expressed no bitterness over the bank’s closure, the fate of his former staff, with some having passed away or fallen into poverty, deeply affected him.
Amoabeng mentioned he held no hatred but sought divine leniency for his adversaries. “As I sit here, I still don’t hate anybody. I don’t have time, because I will be eating my own mind [up]. I don’t have it. So I only pray to God that whoever hates me, God should tone down on the punishment for the person.”