Kwebena Adjei Explodes! NDC Capos Behind Mills Death Rumour

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

Published in Daily Guide on June 28, 2012

National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Kwabena Adjei has gone to town, accusing high-ranking members of his party of being behind the wild speculations that suggested President Atta Mills was dead.
Contrary to accusations from NDC spin doctors that the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) was behind the rumours, Dr Adjei said, “We are worried because this is coming from within our own ranks and from the highest echelons of our rank”, confirming claims by the pro-government tabloid The Informer that the rumours emanated from the Castle, the seat of government.
In a recorded conversation which was aired on a number of radio stations yesterday, the NDC Chairman was heard in a vexatious tone trying to douse speculations about the President’s health condition, saying, “There is nothing wrong with President Mills. President Mills is not ill. President Mills is doing what he can do to promote the ‘Better Ghana’ agenda, that’s it! And people want to rock the boat because they have their own agendas”.
He blasted those in the NDC with death-wishes for President Mills, who is set to lead them into the December 2012 general elections, saying, “The likes of me have sat down; we have not talked about anything, we have watched events and we are worried because this is coming from within our own ranks and from the highest echelons of our rank.”
This, he said, was because “there is nothing wrong with Professor Mills sitting down there; he’s healthy”, with a warning in tow: “We can’t continue to sit down and then see them rock the boat.”
However, he was short of mentioning names.
Until the NDC chief spilled the beans, the party propagandists had turned the heat on the opposition NPP, accusing it of spreading the rumour about Mills’ death.
But the NPP had refused to be drawn into the fray, saying that in the event of the president’s death, it was the vice president who would rather benefit since he would be elevated.
Sekou’s Clarion Call
In view of the conundrum around the president’s health, and other reasons, controversial son of Ghana’s first President, Dr. Sekou Nkrumah is pushing for the replacement of President Mills as presidential candidate of the NDC ahead of the December 2012 general elections.
He believed the President’s health would not able him to endure the strains of a vigorous electioneering campaign and stressed the urgent need for the NDC to wake up and “tell Mills to step aside for the Vice President”.
“I don’t know why the party is delaying in getting Mills to step aside for Mahama who is healthier and a good material because the more they delay, the worse it gets.
“We all hear Mills and Nana Addo speak so if the two of them stand for President in the country, why does the NDC think people will vote for President Mills?”, he wondered during a discussion on Asempa FM’s ‘Ekosii sen’ programme on Tuesday.
In his opinion, “Mills should have been allowed for one term due to his health conditions.”
But National Chairman of the NDC, Dr Kwabena Adjei insisted, “President Mills is not ill.”
That notwithstanding, Sekou, who was sacked as National Coordinator of the National Youth Council said, “I think it is not too late; the Vice President is there so they can marshal forces for the Vice President to lead the party into the elections rather than presenting sick Mills”.
Hassan Ayariga, People’s National Convention (PNC’s) presidential candidate, who was at the airport to welcome President Mills from a medical check-up trip, announced that nobody needed a rocket scientist to know that President Mills was sick.
He said the president was frail and it was obvious that he was not in good shape.
Word had spread from the Castle that the President was unwell after he allegedly failed to respond to in-house calls either willingly or unwillingly.
The Buzz At Castle
Reports said prior to flying the president out to the United States, the President was virtually out of touch, with his handlers raising fear and panic at the Castle.
The Chief of Staff, Henry Martey Newman, was alerted and he quickly arranged for the President to fly out of the country for what Prof Mills himself described as ‘a routine medical check-up’ in the United States.
The news buzzed with a lot of to and fro by his handlers and it leaked unto social media networks that he had passed on while he was still alive and kicking.
He returned to the country last Monday and at the Kotoka International Airport, where he was met on arrival by an overly enthusiastic crowd arranged by his party, embarked on a brief jogging exercise in a bid to prove his ability to go the full trot with the campaign.
But an obviously unhappy Sekou, who left the NDC to join the NPP campaign, had a word of advice for his colleagues in the ruling party: “The health of President Mills is no joke and must be taken serious.”
This, he said, was because “the president after returning from his check up said he is healthy but listening to the voice, you will notice that he is not only sick but very very sick.”
“Sekou Nkrumah will be the last person to wish President Mills ill. It is un-Ghanaian to wish ill on someone and I will not do it ever but I think with his current situation he must be forced to resign,” he insisted.
The former NYC boss said the President must resign to enable government to focus attention on improving the living conditions of the people.
“I think Ghanaians are focusing on things which are needless. We should be focusing on the welfare of people not the health of the president. We as a people must be fixing the economy of Ghana instead of fixing the health of the president. We should think about the health of Ghana and not the health of president Mills,” he noted.
He blamed the leadership of the NDC for making the health of president Mills worse by allowing him to lead the party into this year’s election because it would have been avoided by allowing the vice president to step in.
Mills @ NDC Headquarters
President Mills visited the party headquarters yesterday, the second since he became president, for a meeting with party executives on some pertinent issues affecting the party.
The President arrived at the headquarters at exactly 11am quietly, according to reports monitored on Peace Fm.
DAILY GUIDE sources at the meeting said reporters were barred from recording the voice of the president for obvious reasons.
The president has shaky voice since he returned from the United States and had a nasal tone- an indication that all is not well after all.

$20m NDC House For Lease

Published on June 25, 2012 | Daily Guide
By Charles Takyi-Boadu 

The controversial $20-million four-storey building intended to be used as the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is currently being offered for lease, apparently because of the controversy surrounding it.
The building, which was constructed by a Chinese company, prompted questions from individuals and groups following speculations that it was owned by the NDC, even as the ruling party struggled to distance itself from it.
Though it was not clear for how much the plush edifice- which is located at Adabraka, the commercial nerve center of the capital city, Accra- is being let out, a lease notice had been pasted on the facility, asking interested persons to either call a landline or mobile phone number supplied.
An Accra-based legal practitioner and brother-in-law of the Ahwois, Kwaku Bram-Larbi, who is also a member of the NDC and in-charge of the property, indeed confirmed to DAILY GUIDE that the facility was being offered for lease at a price of $32 per square meter per month.
Mr Bram-Larbi was a member of the Sub-Committee on Legal Affairs of the NDC Transitional team in 2009 when President Mills was elected.
The committee was chaired by Betty Mould-Idrissu, former Attorney General, who authorized the fraudulent GH¢51.2million payment to Alfred Agbesi Woyome, the NDC financier.
Mr Bram-Larbi (BL) confirmed the price during an interview with DAILY GUIDE (DG) which is reproduced here.
DG: Good afternoon sir, I’m Charles Takyi-Boadu of the DAILY GUIDE newspaper. How are you doing?
BL: I’m alive
DG: Chief, we understand you are the lead lawyer in-charge of this building at Adabraka which is being offered for lease
BL: Yes, does the DAILY GUIDE want it?
DG: Well, we just have an interest in it. Chief, does that building really belong to the NDC?
BL: I don’t represent the NDC; my clients are not NDC. I thought this thing came up a long time ago. Those of you who cared did the searches…Papa. I don’t represent the NDC; the property does not belong to NDC. If you are interested, you can write a formal…notify us of your interest and then we can start talking.
DG: But chief who are the original owners of this building?
BL: Original owners? There are no original owners; the owners are my clients.
DG: Who are?
BL: Why is the DAILY GUIDE asking me these questions?
DG: We are just asking these questions in view of the controversy that it generated
BL: Which controversy? I’m not aware of any controversy…Mr Takyi, you see that when you people in the press decided to write about it, nobody said anything about it because me I knew that whoever was writing from what do you call it in London Times to whatever, they were just writing to please themselves. So nobody commented; I didn’t comment. My clients refused to comment. What I have done is what you have seen; it is there for lease. The process is that if you are interested, please send the letter, we will talk to you.
If it was for the NDC, do you think they would advertise it for leasing?
DG: I wouldn’t know but Mr. Bram-Larbi who are these your clients?
BL: I am not going to disclose to you until…if you are interested in the land, then I will tell my clients that … because I have three, four other people who have expressed interest in renting.
DG: So how much is it going for?
BL: Yes Mr. Takyi-Boadu, I have told you what I would ask you to do; what everybody who is interested is doing. If you put your interest formally on paper, then we talk to you but if you care to know it’s going for $32 per square meter.
DG: But I think, it would be good to clear any doubts hanging over the ownership of this building?
BL: There is no doubt. Well, if anybody or you think there is a doubt; go to the Lands (Commission)…You will find out. There is no doubt. It’s only one person and it’s duly registered.
DG: Who is?
BL: Please, I have answered that question with you. If you are interested, bring me an application, expressing your interest then we can talk but for me to be called by a newspaper to ask who the owner of the property is; I don’t think any good lawyer will do that.
DG: Okay Mr Bram-Larbi, I wouldn’t want to bother you that much; thank you very much sir and have a wonderful day.
BL: You’re welcome.
It was however believed that a whopping $20million was expended on the entire project as said by pro-democracy pressure group, Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG).
What baffled most individuals and groups, especially AFAG, which raised issues of impropriety about the building, was the fact that they could not fathom how a political party which only three years ago was on the verge of being thrown out of its Kokomlemle headquarters, due to unpaid rent arrears, could suddenly put up such a plush building in a choice area like Adabraka.
When the issue about the ownership of the building first came up for discussion, key and influential members of the NDC denied ownership until a confirmation by party General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, who said they were scheduled to move in by the middle of this year.
With the backlash that the issue generated for the NDC, it suddenly chickened out, saying that it had nothing to do with the edifice.
But a source told DAILY GUIDE that in view of the furore the building generated when it came to light, the party intended to defer its use in order to deviate attention.
They were said to be considering the option of giving it out to Accra-based Radio Gold and TV3 which are both owned by kingpins of the ruling administration, in order not to generate further controversy over the building.
It was however not clear if Radio Gold would indeed move into the building, in view of the fact that the station is undergoing massive renovation by Chinese contractors.
TV3 is said to have been bought by some NDC gurus from the Malaysian owners in another bizarre transaction.

Don’t Dare Me – JJ Warns Mosquito

Published: Daily Guide on June 22, 2012

By Charles Takyi-BoaduFormer President Jerry John Rawlings yesterday reacted angrily to the tantrums of National Democratic Congress (NDC) General Secretary Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, who had called on supporters of the ruling party to defy the NDC founder.
Spokesman for Mr. Rawlings, Kofi Adams, who addressed a press conference in Accra on behalf of his boss, said, “We want to use this platform to warn them that henceforth, the office (of Mr Rawlings) is not going to keep quiet over such reckless comments coming from people who don’t think before they talk.
“If they say anything that affects his Excellency the former President, we will respond in like manner or more,” Mr Adams warned, asking the party’s General Secretary in particular to be careful with his comments.
The former president had just returned from a trip to Israel only to learn about the unprovoked attack from General Mosquito, who virtually dragged his former benefactor on the floor.
Mr Rawlings was around when his spokesperson was addressing the journalists.
Mr Adams stressed the need for the leadership of the NDC to call Mr. Asiedu-Nketia to order before they stripped him naked.
An obviously angry Kofi Adams said, “We’ve had the late Dr Caiquo, we’ve had Huudu Yahyaha as General Secretary before. The NPP has had Dan Botwe as a General Secretary in government and Nana Ohene-Ntow also as a General Secretary in government. We have not heard this kind of behaviour or this kind of utterances from them.”
The forum was to address what Kofi Adams, who had been suspended from his position as Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, described as “very important issues that have gone on in recent past” in the NDC and the country as a whole, and to “expose the falsities that have been peddled by some persons including leading members of government and party to denigrate the founder” of the NDC and his wife.
It was somehow a direct response to a statement over the weekend by the party General Secretary when he addressed NDC supporters at Wa in which he was captured on tape saying, “One of the ideals of what we were taught as part of June 4^th uprising is to engage in what we call positive defiance” and that as a means of implementing positive defiance, members of NDC should defy the founder and former President, Jerry John Rawlings and also Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.
Mr. Asiedu-Nketia said this was because Mr. Rawlings and his wife had allegedly sought to work against the interest of the NDC as a party, virtually campaigning for the opposition candidate.
Credibility Crisis
“I was wondering whether our General Secretary or Hon Johnson Asiedu-Nketia was indeed the General Secretary when he spoke on that platform because I was wondering where he got his information from; where President Rawlings has been to, to ask that people vote for the opposition candidate and the issues that President Rawlings has been raising whether those were the issues he was expecting the party’s members to defy,” an obviously disgruntled Mr. Adams posited.
He could therefore not fathom why Mr. Asiedu-Nketia, often referred to as General Mosquito, had in the last couple of days been hopping from one radio station to another to defend his use of the term ‘barking dog’ to describe Mr. Rawlings, claiming that he never used the word.
“Those who keep calling and wanting unity, coming around, engaging some of us and all of us are doing what it is that we can do, we cannot continue building when you have somebody at the centre of affairs destroying,” Kofi Adams warned.
He used the occasion to urge supporters, sympathizers and those who believed in the ideals of probity, accountability and social justice, as espoused by the Rawlingses, to “remain resolute”.