Titus Glover: Ken is Mills’ target because of Woyome

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Category: Politics

Created on Wednesday, 18 April 2012 00:00

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{sidebar id=12 align=right}Titus Glover: Ken is Mills’ target because of Woyome

Titus Glower, a leading member of the Young Patriots, says Kennedy Ohene Agyepong, the MP for Assin North, has become the number one enemy of the Mills-Mahama led NDC government because of his anti-corruption agenda against the government, especially the leading role he played in exposing the GHC51m Woyome scandal.

“Ken has consistently been at the forefront in exposing the massive corruption in the government and because of that the Mills-Mahama led government has not been comfortable with him and has sought all avenues to nail him and cow him into silence and inaction,” Mr Glover noted yesterday in an interview with the New Statesman.

He could not understand why members of the NDC in the Odododiodio constituency, led by presidential aide, Nii Lantey Vanderpurje, are still “walking free men even though they have been behind some of the violence that has rocked the ongoing registration exercise.”

“This clearly shows that the Mills-Mahama government is not committed to proper justice and fair play, but only using the law to cow people like Kennedy Agyempong into submission and to teach him a lesson, just because they are uncomfortable with him for his anti-corruption agenda against them,” he insisted.

Kwabena Amankwah

Source: Statesmanonline.com

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Soldiers Storm NPP Office

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Category: Politics

Created on Wednesday, 18 April 2012 00:00

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Soldiers Storm NPP Office

ARMED SOLDIERS in a Military Patrol pickup yesterday morning virtually took over the main street in front of the NPP Ashanti regional office at Bantama where about 300 supporters of the opposition party had converged.

The soldiers were said to have driven slowly on the main street in front of the NPP office.

{sidebar id=12 align=right}Their presence in the hitherto peaceful area in the city seemed to have ignited fear and panic among the NPP faithful present as some of them ran for cover, DAILY GUIDE was told.

The NPP supporters were clad in their party colours with red bands on their heads and other parts of their body to display their fury over what they termed as the unlawful arrest of party stalwart Kenndey Agyapong in Accra.

Minutes after the NPP fans drawn from different parts of the city had arrived at the place, the military vehicles loaded with soldiers also emerged at the scene.

Though the soldiers did not stop the car, the slow place at which the car was being driven, with the military men openly showing their different types of rifles, instantly sent shivers down the spine of the NPP fans.

The military pickup patrolled the street in front of the NPP office for some minutes before finally exiting the scene around 10:30am after some radio stations in the city had announced the invasion of the NPP office by some military personnel.

Speaking with DAILY GUIDE, the Ashanti regional organizer of the NPP, Kennedy Kankam, said he was surprised about the presence of the military car surveying the area at that time, noting he had not witnessed such a thing in the area before.

According to him, he became terrified and at a point feared that something nasty might occur when the NPP supporters present started singing war songs, with the soldiers’ car also being driven at a tortoise’s pace.

Kankam said the NPP did nothing illegal which should warrant the presence of soldiers.

Asked what the NPP supporters were doing at the place at that time, Kankam said as early as 6am, some dyed-in-the-wool members of the NPP, numbering about 300, stormed the party office to ask what the region was doing about the arrest of Kennedy Agyapong.

He said the NPP faithful also enquired about what the party in the region, which is the NPP’s strong hold in the country, was doing about the chaos and disturbances that had characterized the registration exercise in some parts of the region.

Kankam said the Ashanti regional scribe of the NPP, Sam Pyne, was in the course of calming down the NPP supporters to return to their homes and allow the law to work when the soldiers arrived.

He asked whether it was wrong for the NPP supporters to visit their own party office, insisting that the sudden emergence of the soldiers at the place to put fear and panic in them was unfortunate and should never be repeated.

On his part, Sam Pyne said he urged the NPP fans that thronged the place not to do anything untoward but should rather register to help the party unseat the NDC and restore Ghana back to the path of prosperity.

On the Kennedy Agyapong arrest, he said the party hierarchy in Accra was meeting about the matter and would soon come out with a statement; therefore no NPP member should do anything untoward in the name of the party.

Mr. Pyne said he was not surprised about the presence of the military car that patrolled the street that morning, insisting that he had information a day earlier that both the military and police were planning to respond harshly to any action that the NPP supporters in the region would take in reaction to the arrest of Kennedy Agyapong.

Source: I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi/Daily Guide

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NPP condemns tribal politics

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Category: Politics

Created on Wednesday, 18 April 2012 00:00

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- Calls for an end to selective justice

The New Patriotic Party has condemned the recent spate of tribal politicking as well as the selective and partisan nature in which the laws of Ghana are being enforced.

{sidebar id=12 align=right}According to the party, this unhealthy development is threatening to poison Ghana’s political environment in the run-up to the December presidential and parliamentary elections.

Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, National Chairman of the NPP, expressed the sentiments yesterday in a statement issued in the wake of the arrest of the Member of Parliament for Assin North, Kennedy Agyepong, for an intemperate public statement he made in reaction to violence and intimidation being perpetrated in Odododiodio.

The NPP Chairman explained that the party was deeply concerned about the acts of violence, intimidation, inflammatory statements and other illegal acts that had characterised the ongoing biometric registration exercise, adding “our duty, as politicians is to keep Ghana peaceful, democratic and just for all her citizens”.

“The NPP makes it absolutely clear that we do not support intemperate statements and actions that can incite and inflame ethnic passions. Ghana is a proud multi-ethnic country and the NPP, a truly national party, is committed to jealously guard and promote this heritage,” Jake said.

The NPP Chairman also took a swipe at the selective and partisan manner in which the law is being enforced in the country, adding that the current posture of the Ghana Police Service posed a serious threat to the maintenance of peace and security nationwide.

Citing the example of the arrest of Kennedy Agyapong whilst Presidential Aide, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye is walking free, Jake said, “the arrest of the MP for Assin North is further evidence of this selective application of the law”, which is affecting public confidence in the Police.

The NPP Chairman maintained that for the police to take no action against the perpetrators of violence “but to suddenly discover their powers to take action against those, who in frustration, make statements in reaction to acts of violence and police inaction sends very worrying signals about the forthcoming general elections.”

“The Police Service must be professional and act without fear or favour,” he charged.

Jake added that the violence, intimidation and the apartheid manner in which the NDC parliamentary candidate for Odododiodio and a senior aide to the President, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, has been conducting himself during this registration exercise is completely unacceptable.

Jake lamented about the fact that President Mills, in whose office Nii Lantey Vanderpuye works, is yet to take any action against these blatant acts of lawlessness, calling on the President “to be at the forefront in ensuring law and order.”

“His statement that he is not a police officer gives the unfortunate perception that the Commander-in Chief is distancing himself and his office from this all important responsibility,” Jake added.

The NPP Chairman urged supporters to be calm in the face of provocation, adding that the biometric registration exercise is about giving all Ghanaians voters an equal chance to decide, first, where they ‘ordinarily reside’ and, ultimately, on the future of their country on voting day.

“We applaud our party loyalists who have been defending these values and the integrity of the registration exercise in spite of the intimidation, violence, ethnic challenges they have faced. We encourage them to stay focused and be vigilant in monitoring the ongoing registration exercise. They should have courage and stay on the right side of the law”, Jake said.

Fiifi Arhin

Source: Statesmanonline.com

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Hypocritical Rawlings is part of the problem in NDC- Baako

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Created on Sunday, 08 April 2012 00:00

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Hypocritical Rawlings is part of the problem in NDC- Baako

The Editor in Chief of the New Crusading Guide Newspaper has scoffed at the attempt by Regional Ministers to reconcile the two leading political leaders in the ruling National Democratic Congress

Malik Kweku Baako Jnr. is however convinced ex-president John Rawlings cannot escape blame from the seemingly chaotic nature the party finds itself.

Last week, Regional Ministers held a meeting in the Ashanti Region during which they discussed plans, including forming a coalition of chiefs and queen mothers to assist in bringing president John Mills and his predecessor, John Rawlings together after years of strained relationship.

{sidebar id=12 align=right}Upper East Minister Mark Woyongo told Joy News the coalition will attempt to get the two most influential men in the party sing from the same hymn book.

They are however yet to seek the opinion of the chief of staff before proceeding to speak to the two men.

On Joy FM and MultiTV news analysis programme Newsfile, Saturday, Malik Kweku Baako was blunt in his critique about the procedure being adopted by the regional ministers to reconcile the two men.

The timing he said was terribly wrong, and the procedure lacked tact and diplomacy- one that needed “common sense” and not a “lecture in political science” to undertake.

According to him, some of the Regional Ministers who only last year ran away from their posts in order not to be “contaminated” by Mr. Rawlings during the run-up to the Sunyani Congress now seek to return to him in the spirit of reconciliation.

He said the least they can do is to go about their reconciliation in a more competent manner than they are doing now.

Rawlings is part of problem

But the Rawlings critique maintained his long time friend and foe is also part of the problem even though he has been hypocritical about it.

Mr. Rawlings and his aide Kofi Adams have always cited values and principles which they claim have been sacrificed by the Mills led administration and for which reason Mr Rawlings finds it difficult to mend bridges with the sitting president.

But Kweku Baako insisted those values and principles have to be scrutinized.

Quoting a speech delivered in Abuja by ex-president Rawlings on March 6 2010, Baako named, albeit cautiously, corruption, justice as some of the values and principles which Mr Rawlings holds so dearly and which he accuses the Mills administration of failing to live by.

For instance Mr Rawlings in that speech, stated that as part of good governance, governments have taken the responsibility to prosecute officials of the past administration who were deemed to have indulged in corruption but stated president Mills has failed in that regard.

Malik Baako insisted that the ex-president is not being fair to Ghanaians on that score and at the very least he is being hypocritical about the issue.

He said for the 19 years that Mr Rawlings presided over the country, not a single of his appointees was prosecuted for corruption offences. And when a competent court of jurisdiction found some officials under Rawlings’ regime guilty of corruption under the NPP administration, Mr Rawlings described it as “miscarriage of justice”.

He found it intriguing that the same man will now accuse the Mills administration of failing to prosecute NPP officials, especially, when that accusation cannot by any stretch of imagination be true.

“So you ask is he himself [Rawlings] being fair,” he quizzed, adding, “Mr Rawlings certainly feels pained; there is some pain in him as a human being, even though I think that he is a bit too hypocritical when he pretends he is the only one who is been pained.

“Rawlings had a lot of colleagues around him, people who worked so faithfully for him- loyally for him- [people] who he betrayed along the line. Some died, some went into exile some went to jail. Others are poverty stricken today. They are also very pained,” he said.

He said 19 years should be good enough for Mr Rawlings to learn lessons from all these in order to resolve the crisis.

Whilst agreeing in part with Kweku Baako that some officials within the former administration are being prosecuted, Kofi Adams insisted the right targets have been missed.

He cited the Issa Mobila prosecution in which he said corporals are rather been prosecuted when the big fishes who issued the command for the former CPP Chairman in the Northern Region to be murdered in 2004 were at large.

“Your justice that you are delivering may be tilted towards one side; those who directly acted and not those instructed in a structure where it is obey before complain,” he said.

Kofi Adams also stated that Mr. Rawlings is always ready to stand up for his friends, especially when those friends share similar values and principles with him.

A member of the government communications team, Murtala Mohammed who was also on the show stated emphatically that none of the people jailed under the Rawlings administration were found guilty of corruption.

He said President Mills has a different style of leadership and will not acquiesce to criticisms about his style of governance.

From:Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com

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