NPP Flies Red Flag Over Census

Posted: Daily Guide | Wednesday, 02 February 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Ghanaians have criticized the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) for its inability to release details of the 2010 population and housing census.

A scheduled press conference to announce the provisional figures for last year’s census on Monday was suddenly called off after officers of the GSS spent several hours ‘consulting’ at the Information Ministry.

The Government Statistician, Dr. Grace Bediako, called the press conference on Monday apparently to announce the provisional results of the census.

However, after Dr. Bediako allegedly held a meeting with the Information Minister, they agreed to call off the exercise with the explanation that technical reasons prevented them from releasing the results.

Journalists who were invited to cover the event were left wondering for sometime what was going on until they received their ‘soli envelopes’ and left for their offices.

One of the several people who have started raising issues about the unexplained reasons for cancelling the release of the census results is General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie, who says he has reason to believe that there is a deliberate ploy by government to massage the census figures, hence the undue delay.

In an interview with DAILY GUIDE yesterday, Mr. Owusu Afriyie said “there is a reason that they want to bloat the Volta regional figures so that it comes closer to that of Ashanti region.”

According to him, the situation has created a state of uneasiness at the Statistical Service since some of the individuals and technical persons there are not happy with the development.

Mr. Owusu-Afriyie said, “I hope that is not true because if they are, then it will raise a whole lot of concern and so I want to believe that it is not true.”

That notwithstanding, the NPP secretary said, “We are waiting with keen interest (to see) the figures that are going to emanate from it representing the Volta regional figures.”

He noted: “I quite remember that again we got this information that long after the thing had closed, they were still registering people or counting people in the Volta region and when they were asked they said ‘oh it is normal’ and that they were doing a mopping up exercise.”

He could not understand why that mopping up was not done in any other region apart from the Volta region, noting, “and so it gives us cause for concern.

Like I said, I want to believe that it is not true that they want to increase the Volta regional figures and I pray that my fears are not confirmed.”

The NPP General Secretary, however, warned: “But if it comes out that that is what the figures are, we are not going to take kindly to that.”

That, he said, was because “everybody knows, every child knows that the Volta regional figures do not come anywhere near those for the Ashanti region. At least, all the election results that we have known and we have seen confirm that.

“So if they want to sit there and massage the figures in the Volta region so that it comes closer to that of the Ashanti region or …, then obviously, it’s not going to go down well for the people of this country. So they should be very careful,” he warned.

Mr. Owusu-Afriyie, popularly called Sir John, strongly believes that the only thing that would make the government and its agencies do such a thing would be for electoral purposes, saying, “If you care to know every election that we have had, they deliberately increased the Volta region margin so that it would cancel some of the results that come from the Ashanti region.

“So sometimes you hear Ketu North and Ketu South and the results that come from there it would cancel that of Ashanti. This is what they have always done in the years 1992 and the year 2000.

That has always been their modus operandi, even 2004 and 2008, they did the same thing. But this time round everybody knows the population of Volta region doesn’t come anywhere near Ashanti region,” he noted.

“So they should be careful and we hear that people are not happy that they want to touch the figures,” and “if that’s what they are going to do, we wait with keen interest and hope and pray that what we hear is not true,” he stated.

Tony Aidoo Unfit

Posted: Daily Guide |Wednesday, 02 February 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
Charles Takyi-Boadu
The controversial Member of Parliament for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa in the Central Region, PC Appiah-Ofori thinks the selection of Dr Tony Aidoo to serve on the Africa Union (AU) 11-member Advisory Board on Corruption is of no use because he has no track record in fighting corruption.

Appiah-Ofori said, “If the Board is a board established to insult people then Tony Aidoo is the right one to represent Ghanaians because his area is insulting people.”

Speaking on the appointment of Tony Aiddo on various networks in Accra yesterday, Mr. Appiah-Ofori, an avowed anti-corruption campaigner, said he does not know what contribution Dr Aidoo, who heads the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit at the Office of the President, at the Osu Castle, would make on the AU Board, since according to him, he is not known in the fight against corruption.

“I don’t know who nominated him, and whoever nominated him didn’t know what he was doing… So I don’t think he is going to be of use to the nation or to the African organization,” he said.

He was therefore of the firm conviction that Dr Aidoo’s appointment is one of those numerous political jobs since “they could have gotten a better person to replace him if they did a thorough search among even members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC)”.

In one of the interviews, Mr. Appiah-Ofori, who was speaking his local Fanti language, was compelled to ask rhetorically, “Enti onipa a otse sayi wode saa position yi ma no na oko international level a experience ben na ofi ne man mu ha a ode ko join won na wode aye adwuma?” to wit, if you nominate a person like this for such a position, what experience would he bring on board at the international level?

“If the person going to serve on that Board hasn’t got the experience in the fight against corruption, then he goes there for nothing”, he said, stating emphatically, “He hasn’t got the know-how, the experience and the skill. He is not going to be of use to Africa in this area. This is what I am saying.”

This, he said, is because “members of the Board must bring their experience in the fight against corruption in their various countries so that such a Board may absorb them and recommend to all countries for implementation.”

Dr Tony Aidoo, who is expected to serve a renewable two-year term of office, together with 10 others appointed from other countries in Africa, has since hit back at Mr. Appiah Ofori, describing his comments as a show of petty-mindedness.

An obviously bruised Tony Aidoo asked the MP what he has done in practical sense to fight corruption in Ghana and what his efforts have amounted to.

He teased the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa legislator, by indicating his preparedness to step aside for him to occupy the position, as well as his post at the Presidency, together with his full salary.

But Mr. Appiah-Ofori declined the offer, indicating that he has no interest in anything Tony Aidoo has.

“…who are you? Such a loud-mouthed talker… I have given you the opportunity to come for the job. Come and take it,” Tony Aidoo fumed.

He continued: “I will never behave like you did, go and stand in public and say that my wife has gonorrhea; you see, wo nbu wo ho ([you don’t respect yourself) and you want to be recognised as a respectable person…”

How I Was Drilled

Posted: Daily Guide |Tuesday, 01 February 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The 11-year old form-two pupil of the University Primary and Junior High School, Kumasi, who suffered an ordeal at the hands of former Mayor of Kumasi, Nana Akwasi Agyemang aka Okumkom, has narrated his harrowing experience to DAILY GUIDE.

Aaron Okyem Djan walked into the offices of DAILY GUIDE with his mother to tell his story after Akwasi Agyemang went on several radio stations across the length and breadth of the country yesterday denying the story.

Nana Agyeman’s defence has been that he was ‘not mad’ to detain such a boy for merely beating his little son, Nana Kwame.

But Aaron still maintains that the man indeed held him hostage for some hours at his Dichemso residence in Kumasi last Thursday, January 27 and tortured him.

He recalled how Agyemang ordered him to squat in his house, with both hands held at his back and his legs tied while it drizzled.

On that fateful day, Aaron said, he and five other school mates including his 9-year-old sister and Nana Kwame, the 5-year-old son of the former Mayor, were on their regular taxicab that picked them up after school when Nana Kwame put up a bad attitude on their way home.

Nana Kwame, who was holding a toffee molded like a ring, was pinching him and the others in a playful but hurtful manner so they asked him to stop being naughty.

As his actions became more irritating, Aaron asked the driver to ask Nana Kwame to stop it but he failed and eventually kicked him with his muddy shoes.

At this point, as he complained again, the driver, who he referred to as ‘Wofa Charles’, also asked Akwasi Agyeman’s little son to stop but he would still not budge.

According to Aaron, he felt another pinch of the instrument near his eye so he also tapped him on the shoulder, but Nana Kwame started to cry loudly until he reached home and alighted from the car.

Barely a minute after he got down from the car, Aaron said they saw Nana Kwame coming back with his father who beckoned the driver to stop and ordered them to enter the house.

When he and the driver got to the house, Aaron narrated that a furious-looking Akwasi Agyemang asked them not to only tell why his boy was crying but also explain what exactly happened.

Just as he was about to tell his story, he said, Akwasi Agyemang sent his watchman to call in another boy who was in the car during the incident and lived in the neighbourhood. He said the boy narrated that it was rather his son who started the whole squabble.

The boy noted that the former mayor would not listen to the eyewitness account, adding that “he said his son was too young so he can’t do this thing, I did it, so I should sit on the floor.

“When I sat on the floor, he told our driver that he should take my colleagues away so he has detained me. So I sat there for about three or four hours from about 4pm to about 8pm, in a kneeling position until it started to drizzle.”

Not even the pleadings of Akwasi Agyeman’s own sister, the driver and the boy could touch the heart of the former mayor and royal of the Ashanti kingdom to let the boy go home.

At this point, Mr. Agyeman called Aaron’s mother on her cell phone and told her he was going to send her son to ‘abofraboni’ school, Borstal Institute, because he had misbehaved.

“He asked that we should all go on our knees to beg his son before he will let me go.”


GUN SHOTS

After all that drama, Akwasi Agyemang still appeared not satisfied and now asked Aaron what sort of punishment he should be given.

He then asked the boy to kneel down and raise his hands whilst he (Agyeman) went to his vehicle, which was parked in the compound, for a ‘shot-gun’, threatening to shoot the boy.

If not for the intervention of the former Mayor’s sister, the victim said, he did not know what would have befallen him with Okumkom firing warning shots with the gun.

The driver had to assist Aaron to walk to the car since, after his long-sitting posture, the traumatized young boy could barely move his trembling legs.

Meanwhile, the 46-year-old taxi driver, Charles Osei Yaw, has confirmed Aaron’s account to DAILY GUIDE.

Despite meting out such inhuman treatment to the boy, Nana Agyemang walks on the streets of Kumasi a free man as he is yet to be questioned over his acts.

The Tafo/Pankrono district police commander, Superintendant Kwaku Buah, said he could not speak on the issue since the case had been transferred to the Ashanti regional police command.