Kwaw Kese: Why I pleaded guilty

Rapper, Kwaw Kese, who did a day’s jail time last week for a narcotics related offence, has explained why he changed his initial plea of ‘not guilty’ to ‘guilty’.

He told Joy FM’s Mamavi Owusu-Aboagye on last weekend’s Rhythmz A- Z: “You know the whole thing is sometimes you plead guilty to your benefit, and that’s what I did,” he said.

“It wasn’t a strategy; I didn’t want to drag this issue for a long time. My job was at stake, going back and forth…  if I had to go to court and I have some work to do, you can’t do the work and stop the court so to cut a long process short, I pleaded guilty so the whole thing can come to an end.”

Kwaw who was also made to pay a fine of GH¢ 1,200 agreed with popular opinion that the judge was lenient.

“It’s more of a leniency thing. I think the judge was very lenient on me. After serving 39 days on remand in prison … I think … to me that’s my opinion; I think he was very lenient, to me. And I thank God for that.”

Asked what was next for him, he said:“The next thing is Yakubu . As you know, I changed my name from Kwaw Kese to Yakubu . I released the song a couple of days ago, the song went viral. It was on worldwide trends on Twitter and the song is doing great. The song … even when the song was not out it was a hit so Yakubu is the new thing going on.

“And we are doing Kwaw Kese tour next week Saturday, May 2nd, we are doing Winneba Sir Charles Beach, the Aboakyere festival. From there, we move to a different city, we playing Kwaw Kese Tour and going nationwide.”

Kwaw Kese was arrested on the weekend of Saturday November 22, 2014 at a popular pub in the Ashanti Regional capital, he spent some one month appealing for bail while on remand.

After being denied on two occasions, a new plea for bail on health grounds was finally upheld on December 30 in the sum of GH¢ 80,000 with one surety without justification. The prosecution did not oppose the application.

He subsequently spent some time at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital for a stomach-related complication prior to a December 30 ruling which saw him being granted bail.

Kese has since started a personal campaign to highlight the harsh conditions in Ghana’s prisons.