Sekou To Go After Showing Mills Red Card

Posted: Daily Guide |Thursday, 15 July 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The Coordinator of the National Youth Council (NYC) and son of Ghana’s first President, Dr Sekou Nkrumah, appears to have incurred the wrath of President Atta Mills and members of his administration, following comments he made about the performance of the President since he assumed office.

Deputy Information Minister James Agyenim-Boateng dropped the hint yesterday when he spoke on Joy FM’s ‘Super Morning Show’.

Though Agyenim-Boateng does not want to link the dismissal of Sekou to his comments about the President, the deputy minister noted that the Board of the National Youth Council was unimpressed about Sekou’s output and delivery since he took office and was therefore ready to relieve him of his appointment and look for a replacement.

Whilst he rubbished Sekou’s claim that President Mills lacked the charisma, dynamism and strong will to inspire hope in the populace, the deputy minister said the President was unfazed by such comments and criticisms but rather took them in good faith since he believed in dissenting views.

That notwithstanding, he noted, what the NYC boss said was far from the reality on the ground since it was not only preposterous but also baseless.

He stressed that President Mills had made significant progress in the management of the economy since he took over the reigns of power about 19 months ago.

“We have an excellent leader in President John Evans Atta Mills. We have a president who is fair and firm. He is in control and in charge of affairs.

We have a president who is committed to the prudent and efficient management of the economy. We have a president who is honest, trustworthy and is committed to the fight of corruption.”

According to him, “if these are not the virtues of an excellent leader, then I do not know what we want in an excellent leader.”

Sekou Nkrumah, who had thrown more light on the raging issue of the president’s incompetence in follow-up interviews on a number of radio stations, after DAILY GUIDE’s publication on Tuesday, has currently disappeared from public view.

He failed to turn up for a scheduled interview in the studios of Joy FM yesterday and subsequently refused to answer queries from DAILY GUIDE about the board’s intention to sack him.

Asked whether he was aware of the NYC board’s intention to relieve him of his appointment, Dr Nkrumah only said “I am not giving any interviews” and hung up his phone.

It is however believed that Sekou is merely being sacrificed for the comments he made about the president.

Sekou had told the ‘AfricaWatch’ magazine that “a lot of people see Mills as an academic and a gentleman. But in the political arena, you need to be strong-minded, and it looks like this leadership quality is missing in Mills.

So I guess we need a more strong-willed, dynamic personality, a charismatic person to inspire national confidence, and also to let the population see the national agenda and feel part of it.”

Dr. Nkrumah was asked: "Is the Mills government on course to deliver its pre-election promises of a Better Ghana?"

He answered: "Honestly, there is a big question mark because since the NDC came to power in January 2009, there has not really been any serious change in real terms."

He stated that "from where I am standing, I can see clearly that since coming to power, the Mills government has not fulfilled its promises. I know it is not politically incorrect, but that's a fact."

The AfricaWatch magazine asked Dr. Nkrumah, “Is the economy any better now than when President Mills met it in January 2009?
"I am not an expert, but it doesn't seem to be better now than when the NDC met it. I don't think much has changed," he said.

Pratt Predicts Doom For NDC

Posted: Daily Guide |Wednesday, 14 July 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
THE MANAGING Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt, says the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is likely to lose the 2012 general elections if it continues to handle the affairs of the country as it is now.

He believes the NDC is currently charting a course that would eventually lead them into opposition and has therefore warned the leadership of the party to put their house in order before the disaster befalls them.

“2012 is crucial, if they lose it, they’ve lost it forever,” was exactly how he put it when he spoke on Peace FM’s ‘Kokrokoo’ morning show yesterday.

According to him, the current division and various interests in the NDC have the tendency to degenerate into chaos if not properly handled.

In a subsequent interview with DAILY GUIDE, Mr. Pratt asked, “If they succeed in undermining the current administration and create the impression that this administration has failed and so on, who is going to vote for them?”, adding “they will not win the elections.”

He said “if they don’t win the elections and another party (the NPP) wins the elections, look at all the prospects available to that party.

If nothing at all, the oil revenue will plug the holes in the budget. Anybody who is in power and has so many resources will be able to solve the basic problems of the people; electricity, water and so on.”

For this reason, he noted that any party which manages to win power has the tendency of staying in power for a very long time.

If this should happen, he does not envisage the NDC coming to power anytime soon, since according to him, it will take them several years to win back the confidence of Ghanaians.

He said “it is obvious some people are trying to undermine the credibility of the President from the statements they make. If you, for instance, consider the utterances of the former President, he says the government is not only slow but it is in reverse. He refers to the current President as Konongo ‘kaya’.”

“All of these things are indications that…and listening to Nana Konadu’s interview on Joy FM and listening to some key people in the administration, it is obvious that there is some effort to undermine the authority of the President to create the impression that the government has failed and all of that. It is clear,” he stated.

Mr. Pratt could not fathom why certain elements in the NDC and specifically those suspected to be agents of the Rawlingses would prevent any journalist from performing his legitimate duty.

This, he said, was because the NDC as a party and a political institution has come of age to be still associated with such acts that would affect its image.

He said it was because of that negative image that the likes of the late Justice D.F. Anang and President Mills, who were ‘outsiders’, were invited to join the party.

According to him, this was part of the NDC’s image-saving campaign which goes way back to the days of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) where journalists were arrested and thrown into jail without cause.

Mr. Pratt was speaking about the supposed abduction of his photographer, Mohammed Dauda, when he attempted to take shots of the Adjiringano residence of the former First Family.

Dauda and his other colleague, Duke Tagoe, had gone to Rawling’s Adjiringano residence to take shots of the building for a story they were doing but minutes after they got there and attempted to take the picture, a vehicle with about five occupants pulled up and ordered Dauda to enter.

When he refused and took to his heels, they chased him into a nearby bush where they captured him and took him to a house where he later escaped from.

Though Mr. Pratt insists that one of the gentlemen who abducted the photographer, whose name was given as Nartey, is an agent of ex-President Rawlings, the office of the former President has denied any complicity in the issue, claiming that the story was only cooked-up to put the former First family in bad light and public ridicule.

JJ Weeps Over NDC Attacks

Posted: Daily Guide |Wednesday, 14 July 2010

Former President Jerry John Rawlings is not a happy man, as key and influential figures in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) keep tormenting him and his family each passing day.

Spokesman for Mr. Rawlings, Kofi Adams summed up the frustrations of the ‘old man’ when he spoke on various radio networks across the length and breadth of the country yesterday, trying strenuously to defend the Rawlingses over the issue of their accommodation which has eventually degenerated into an abduction issue.

With ‘stupid ministers’ falling on each other to denigrate the NDC founder, Kofi Adams said there was a deliberate and orchestrated attempts to cause disaffection for Mr. Rawlings using an Accra-based private radio station belonging to acolytes of President Atta Mills.

The spokesman said Mr. Rawlings was well aware of such covert moves by members of his own party to undermine him.

He cited the supposed abduction of a photojournalist from The Insight newspaper, Dauda Mohammed, by supposed agents of the Rawlingses as a classical example- indicating that the former First family was not happy about these developments and the attacks on them by influential members of the party and government.

“This one; it is not the opposition that is doing it, it is our own NDC members,” he alleged.

For some time now, Mr. Adams said, “we’ve picked up intelligence reports that even from within our own party, some government appointees this is (sic) what they’ve been thinking, this is what they’ve been up to, to do in the Rawlingses…It’s amazing but President Rawlings has worked so tirelessly to bring his own party back to power and yet some government elements feel he is the last person they want to hear about, the last person they want to deal with.

So anything they will do, in close partnership with journalists ready and willing to do him in, they will manage…This is a classical example of one of those things that have been put up.”

Though he would not disclose the identity of any individual or group of persons in the NDC he described as detractors of the Rawlingses, Kofi Adams questioned the reason why the alleged abduction of the cameraman was first aired on Radio Gold, owned by the Ahwois, stressing that greed and lies could lead to the party’s collapse.

“The first station they called into was Radio Gold. If it was true that (sic) why should a party founded by the former President have his own party members doing this to him…greed and lies is what will destroy this party and our government. And some of us we’re getting tired of this,” was how he put it.

Mr. Rawlings’ Spokesman therefore considers the accounts of Dauda Mohammed and his colleague Duke Tagoe, both from the Insight newspaper, which suggested that the former was abducted by agents of the Rawlingses when they went to his private residence at Adjirigano near East-Legon in Accra to take pictures of it, as concocted.

This, according to him, was because they are part of a group of selected journalists brought together with the objective of “doing in the former President.”

No matter the length they go to pursue this supposed objective, Mr. Adams, who doubles as Deputy General Secretary of the NDC said, those elements in the NDC and their journalist-agents would not succeed in carrying out their hidden but now open agenda since it would fall flat.

“When you listen to their account of events, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist, you don’t need to be a security expert to know that these are persons who have been put up to do this.

They made an arrangement but did not know that they’ll be exposed…these are persons put together to do in the former president, but it will not wash,” were his exact words.