NDC Dashes Cars, Cash To Imams, Chiefs, Students

Published in Daily Guide on November 14, 2012

One of the Landcruisers given to the Imams and NDC branded Hyundai i10, popularly called Atta Cambu, given to the students

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is determined to retain power in the next general elections as it splurges on a number of voters to influence the polls.
The party (and government) has allegedly resorted to various means of winning votes. It has started giving out money and cars to woo potential voters aside the massive outdoor and media advertisement.
Prior to yesterday’s presentation of 12 brand new Toyota Land Cruiser vehicles to the presidents of the National and Regional Houses of Chiefs by President John Mahama, tongues have been wagging about the several brand new cars including 4×4 cross country and pick-up vans being given to other chiefs.
Doling out of the freebies has caught the attention of influential members of the public including former president John Kufuor. “They are giving chiefs four-wheel drives and giving motorbikes to young men in return for their votes,” he told a gathering of Muslim chiefs last Friday in Kumasi.
Most of the beneficial chiefs are in the northern part of the country where the president has been campaigning for votes.
The vehicles for chiefs are estimated to cost not less than $80,000 (GH¢160, 000, the equivalent of ¢1.6 billion) each.
Leading members of the party and their agents, including some journalists, have been going round the country giving free cars and cash to opinion leaders to enable them to influence their followers to vote for the party.
Some top pastors of the Christian faith and Muslim clerics have also benefitted from the NDC vote-buying largesse.
Leading Imams were recently given brand new Toyota Land Cruisers to their amazement, with one of them refusing to use the car because he considered it as a form of bribery.
Pastors Fly To Jerusalem
Some high-profile pastors were sent on an all expenses-paid pilgrimage to Jerusalem, with as much as $10,000 paid to them as pocket money to pray for the NDC’s victory.
It started when some of these pastors, whose names are being withheld for now, were given brand new Toyota Land Cruisers as birthday gifts under the late President Atta Mills.
In the recent Muslim Hajj to Mecca, over half of the 6000 pilgrims were paid for by the state under the guise of ‘protocol’ allocation.
Not too long ago, the party rolled out a new vote-buying strategy with an invasion of the campuses of tertiary institutions, especially universities and polytechnics, baiting students with what is termed ‘Atta Camboo,’ brand new Hyundai i10 saloon cars. with some branded in NDC colours, with the University of Ghana, Legon becoming the school with the largest group of beneficiaries.
Adjoining hostels to the university are also donning the Atta Camboo cars from which some journalists have also benefitted.
A similar activity is going at the Dansoman campus of the Methodist University where executives of the students’ wing of the NDC, Tertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN), have allegedly received some of these brand new cars.
DAILY GUIDE learnt that all universities across the country have been invaded with the Atta Camboo cars.
Another intensive campaign has also started in various senior high schools with the sharing of GH¢50.00 concealed in neatly designed white envelopes, with a brochure of President John Mahama included.
The brochure, which bears the portrait of John in a red Lacoste shirt with the inscription ‘working for you’, is added to the GH¢50 and a message “dear student, compliments from President John Mahama. Thanks for making your parents and the nation proud. President Mahama asks for your vote. Vote Mahama 2012”, with a monogrammed pen included.
The party is also giving out vehicles and cash including 4×4 and Toyata Hilux pick-ups to a selected number of chiefs, mostly in the Northern regions.
This nearly resulted in confusion not too long ago when some of the chiefs protested against the kind of cars they were given in view of the fact that whilst some of the chiefs were seen driving brand new vehicles, others received used confiscated vehicles.
They therefore felt looked-down upon and raised issues with it.
Some have also been given houses at prime areas including East Legon and within other gated communities.
Opinion leaders therefore raised eyebrows about the source of funding for these profligate and opulent cars and money-sharing enterprise among potential voters, coupled with the mounting of gigantic billboards of President John Mahama across the length and breadth of the country, one of which is estimated to cost not less than GH¢10,000.
Members of the ruling party are said to be going to villages with brochures of President Mahama, with the claim that President Mahama was the one promising free education when voted for, despite the party’s open opposition to the free SHS policy.

Stop My Voice – Otabil

Published in Daily Guide on November 14, 2012

Pastor Mensa Otabil

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

The head pastor of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Dr Mensa Otabil, who has become the centre of a raging controversy over audio recordings he claims to have been pieced together, has asked those behind it to cease playing it as an advert.
This was a day after the celebrated man of God held a press conference at which he made an appeal to President John Mahama to call his boys behind the tape to order.
A group within the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) that identifies itself as the  ‘Education Watch’ has used the said audio for an advert which is being aired on various radio stations in an attempt to ridicule the opposition New Patriotic Party’s ‘free SHS’ campaign promise.
But senior associate pastor at ICGC, Reverend Kofi Okyere, who spoke on Accra-based Citi FM, said, “He (referring to Dr Otabil) doesn’t want his voice being used like that so we are asking them to stop it.”
That, according to him, was in view of the fact that “they are using Doc’s voice without permission”.
“They are making it seem that he (Otabil) has no integrity and is a coward. That is not fair. Just stop using it.
“It’s not fair. The fact that he has produced an album and it is being sold on the market doesn’t mean anyone can use it anyhow. We think they are not using it well and should quit it,” he advised, warning that “If they don’t want to stop, it’s up to them. They can do whatever they want. We will not take it to court. We leave it to God.”
NDC’s No Holds Barred
But President Mahama and the NDC insist on using the tape because they believe the contents are relevant to issues of the day.
A statement issued by the president’s campaign team and signed by its communications director, Hannah Tetteh, sought to justify the use of the tape.
The likes of NDC propaganda secretary Richard Quashigah, deputy Finance Minister Fifi Kwetey, and an endless list of party spokespersons have sought to denigrate the revered man of God, with some using intemperate language to express their sentiments.
The Director of Monitoring and Policy Evaluation at the Presidency, Dr Tony Aidoo, believed Pastor Otabil did not have integrity. The former University of Cape Coast Economics lecturer described the preacher’s thoughts on theology as “metaphysics nonsense” which, he claimed, had lost contemporary relevance.
Dr Aidoo, a former deputy Defence minister, said, “The press conference today shows an extreme case of behavioural inconsistency to be exhibited by a man who presents himself or rather misrepresents himself as a man of God, as somebody who has the knowledge and the vision and has been preaching over the years and more or less become an opinion leader for a large section of the population.
“Nobody asked him to come and present himself and his image to Ghanaians as a man of wisdom. If you have done that, you will have no private ownership of the things you have said.”
He added, “I don’t think he has integrity.”
When he was asked whether or not the NDC would stop playing the tapes, Dr. Aidoo, who abandoned the academia for the world of politics, said, “I am not in charge of the NDC campaign, but if I was, I would play it day and night, 24 hours for Pastor Mensa Otabil to live with his conscience. He said we should have the courage to tell the truth. The test is on him. Let him tell the truth and stop running away.”
Copyright
Ace Anan Ankomah, a lawyer, however believed the decision of the NDC to use Dr Otabil’s voice was a breach of the nation’s copyright laws.
“Those who are using his voice in adverts are in breach of the law. Maybe, you didn’t know, but it has been pointed out to you now that the advert you are carrying with his (Otabil’s) voice is a breach of the law. Just stop it and let’s continue with the politics and leave this out,” he noted.
He quoted sections of the Copyright Act, Act 690, insisting, “In section 1, it mentions works eligible for copyright. It mentions literary works are eligible for copyright. If you go to section 76, it specifically mentions sermons” and that “section 76 under the definition of literary works, it lists lectures, addresses or sermons”.
“Everyone who gives a lecture, an address or sermon, is entitled to copyright protection and so, yes, Otabil has copyright protection.
“You can’t take anyone’s works and simply use it because you claim (he hasn’t] registered it,” he emphasised.
Mr Ankomah, a former lecturer in civil procedure at the Ghana School of Law, indicated, “…he has a right to be protected against distortions, mutilations and other modifications of his work if it is prejudicial to his reputation or the work is discredited by the act” and “has the right to protest against distortions and that is what he (Pastor Otabil) is talking about that various words and sentences have been put together for a certain purpose.”