Comment: ARE YOU A GUINEA FOWL?

 

Comment: ARE YOU A GUINEA FOWL?

Author: Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.

Date: 2010-07-28 20:46:58

Comment to: Nana - a sure banker!

Hi Daniel,

Good day. How are you? By the grace of God I am also fine, thank you very much. I just wanted to say that the reason why the Akonfem and Paul, the Octopus were interesting was because they were not following any known scientific methods. In today's world, a news-worthy prediction of the sort from a fellow human ought to necessarily be backed up with hardcore scientific methods of social research calculated to include margins of error, that is, if you care to be taken seriously.

What are you trying to prove here? Are you another animal who is not required to provide scientific evidence of your predictions? What is your zoological genus, species, order, class, or any other categories of classification you may know about yourself? I shall cross-check the information you provide before I take anything you are saying seriously. How can you make such outrageous predictions without any attempts to follow the minimum of reliable social research methods? Are you a guinea fowl?

What is the basis of the following:

"With the depth of information available to me, I will stick my neck and shout to all who care to listen that come August 7, 2010, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo will surely become flag bearer of the great Osono Tradition, thereby shattering the dreams and aspirations of all those banking the hopes on the prediction of Octopus Paul. After August 7, the Octopus of a ‘predictor’ like the Akonfem man would have no place in the history of this country for his ‘unpredictable predictions’"?

There is nothing wrong with campaigning for Nana. And there are so many beautiful ways to do so without being dishonest. If you were hundred per cent certain that your Nana was going to win, you would not have bothered to issue this propaganda thrash in the first place. Why campaign then? Why dont you people stop campaigning, if you are so sure of victory, and leave us in peace? Are you trying to tell me you went to the Central Region to meet Nana Ato Arthur of the NPP and could not even mention his name correctly? Did you meet with Nana Ato Dadzie ot you met with Nana Ato Arthur?

Here is what you wrote:

"I spoke to a member of one of the groups led team led by Nana Ato Dadzie, immediate past Regional Minister. He told me in no uncertain terms that that it is the way a child opens his hand that a piece of meat is given to him and that Nana has extended an open hand policy to all Ghanaians, both NPP and non party men and woman and that Nana would surely win."

You are plainly boring. We have finished the World Cup with their Octopus and Ankofem stories. We have moved on. The stuff is off-focus and off the news-stands. You have the easy manners of an akpetshie bar scholar. They usually make, what they consider, speeches of their moments of illumination. To get the right balance you have to regulate your dose, as too much of everything is bad. It seems Danquah took a bit too much of ogoglo, but not in sufficient quantity to knock him down, hence this article.

Reading through your work you remind me of a friend who used to sing Christmas songs during Easter, because the issues at stake now is not who is going to win the elections. the principal issue is one of the credibility not only of the elections and eventually that of the flag-bearer who emerges from the congress, but of the entire National Executive Committee of the NPP. Let me share the following thought with you. It is confidential. Keep it to yourself and think seriously about it. And begin to wonder with all your might how could you have been so blind that the seed of defeat have already been sown?




Here we go:

It is now coming to light the details of the tactic the Akufo Addo camp adopted to cheat in the last elections at Kumasi. What I find very curious and honourable of Stephen Ntim to have kept his cool and done what he was supposed to do: following party procedure, even if it meant writing his petition addressed to the National Chairman, who is the suspect in the case.

In my opinion, the National Chairman erred in his response to Mr. Ntim, for not involving fairly neutral hands to handle this particular highly sensitive petition. The reason is very simple: you cannot sit on your own case as an interested party and give judgement at the same time. This is a fundamental principle of jurisprudence which gives meaning to the so-called party procedure they are busy calling everybody else, except themselves, to follow. Yes, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey did not follow party procedure when he took it upon himself to respond to the complaint from Mr. Ntim, even though an interested party himself, saying "the election committee would rather consider resolving the issues concerning the electoral irregularities and not necessarily investigating the matter," And what matter was that, if one might ask? It is becoming increasingly clear that a very clever swindle took place at the Kumasi Congress which elected the current party executives.

The Alan Kyeremanteng camp which is now being maligned as not following party procedure, dutifully wrote a three page petition to the National Executive Committee through the National Chairman. They deserve to be applauded because following party procedure, meant a cheated Ntim writing a three page letter detailing his case and seeking appropriate remedies, to the cheating Jake. Despite this great sign of political goodwill and desire to keep the family strong, they received only a four-line response from the one who cheated him, saying "the election committee would rather consider resolving the issues concerning the electoral irregularities and not necessarily investigating the matter,"

It was Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, who sat in judgement in his own cause, who did not follow party procedure. What does the swift response from the Council of Elders meeting with the aspirants tell you? They reacted swiftly because of the press conference which threatened a boycott of the August 7th Congress if their legitimate grievances have not been looked into, BEFORE the Congress, and not AFTER, because they are also learning from their bitter experiences. You can only step on the balls of a fool once, not twice. Are the so-called Council of Elders not aware of the way the party chairman misconducted himself in the way he handled a sensitive petition from his own party opponent? What have they been waiting for to resolve all these outstanding issues?

And now, all of a sudden, every fool remembers something called party procedure. If the electoral committee was doing its job according to party procedure, there would not have been all these qualms and the need to follow any procedure in the first place. And the reason why party procedure is not being followed is because someone who is in control of the compiling wants to keep it that way for obvious reasons. The trouble is that these reasons are also quite obvious to the opponents. Whilst you have one side doing their own thing and not respecting the rights of others, it is a bit too much to ask the other side to play it by the book, especially, as the suspicion of vote rigging is as thick as is a blanket.

Whilst no one has chided Jake for not following party procedure, every one in the Akufo Addo camp is competing with one another as to who would shrill the loudest about following party procedures. A nice example of this is what my grandson is doing here, but there are more. The General Secretary of the Party, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie has for instance, not taken kindly to the approach adopted by representatives of the four candidates and hinted of possible sanctions against them. A member of the New Patriotic Party Council of Elders Appenten Appiah Menkah, an Akufo Addo hard-liner, has also expressed shock at the ongoing media war between four presidential candidates on one hand, and the national executives on the other. “I don't believe anything within the party should be in the public domain,” he told Joy News. A former General Secretary of the party, Dan Botwe was equally appalled with the decision of the four candidates to go to the press. He described as unacceptable the actions of the four, saying their grievances about voters register "is much ado about nothing".

If I were Akufo Addo, and I was very sure of myself of victory, I would do everything to ensure transparency as much as possible to ensure my political legitimacy. But Akufo Addo is not me, and it appears he has other campaign issues higher on his agenda than a dangerously transparent, free and fair elections that stupidly run the risk to scupper what seems to be a very elaborate and expensive scheme of rigging the elections in his favour. So far, it is not clear whether Akufo Addo really wants to win the 2012 elections or this is just a personal ego trip, irrespective of the results. If this is true, then he does not necessarily need any form of cooperation from the recalcitrant four. So why not, it is very necessary to insist on party procedure and doing nothing meaningful about the complaints until after the Congress, when, hopefully it might be too late, and as everyone knows today, Jake would be on stand-by to issue another four-liner.

This is a prediction form Nana Akyea Mensah, an experienced ghost: Another four-liner is awaiting the shepple. They would try to fool some of the shepple, some of the time, until we enter the ballot box. And like Somerset Maugham children, they shall forever continue to build their statues of snow and never stop weeping to see them melt.

Have a nice day!

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!
–
Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro

Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro,
Blogs: Feature Articles: nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com,
Comments: theodikro.blogspot.com)

Comment: Must Sekou Also thank Kufour?

Comment: Must Sekou Also thank Kufour?

Author: Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.

Date: 2010-07-25 19:25:00

Comment to: Sekou Must Thank Pres. Mills for Not Being Pres. N

Hi grandson,

This is a draft coming soon as a feature article on a screen near your nose! I shall appreciate comments and corrections before it goes for publication.

Here we go:

I would be damned to expect my grandson to pull a surprise and break this annoying monotony just for a change! The other day, I had a good laugh as he went blowing his Danquah horns at my good friend, Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy. Even though Dr. Kennedy is also a member of the Governing Board of the Danquah Institute. In what he described as Okoampa's "misguided effusions", Dr. Kennedy wrote: "Dr. Okoampa-Ahoofe has an unfortunate tendency to see many things around him in the context of his family and his tribe... Unlike Dr. Okoampa-Ahoofe, I believe that in the modern Ghana that we seek to build, each and every one of us must be judged, not by the deeds of some illustrious ancestors but on our own merit... I urge Dr. Okoampa-Ahoofe to mind his language. His disagreeable pieces do not serve the causes and the people he supports well. It is the misguided effusions of people like him that tend to give credence to the unfair pejorative appellation of members of his esteemed family as the “Kyebi Mafia”. As Ghanaian patriots, let us disagree if we must but let us do so with courtesy."'(Re: Arthur Kennedy is being sexist and petty, by Arthur Kobina Kennedy, Dr. Feature Article | Monday, 10 May 2010).

Since the dismissal of Sekou as a result of the very unfortunate interview he gave recently to the New African Magazine, I have read all sorts of nonsense from the NPP. First, it was John Ndegugri. who publicly called on Sekou ”to take a bold decision and join the NPP, which he described as a more liberal party which is receptive to criticisms from all people.” (See: Sekou Should Join The NPP - Ndebugri, Date: 17-Jul-2010). As for Ndebugri, he has his own tribulations, and as a friend of Vladmir, his son, I shall leave the reader to make his own opinions.

Yet another trash that I read on this was a comment by one ”Avoka mate” who said: ”Sekou is right but he should be thankful to democracy being practised in modern Ghana, thanks to Kufuor. If it had been his father's time he would have been sleeping at Nsawam Prison. He should be grateful President Mills for peacefully releasing him of his post. He should ask his father's ghost what J. B. Danquah did and his father sent him to prison to die.” The reason why I have bothered to repeat this is because I believe it is far more better, however silly it is in its own right, than the entire article by this callow professor of yellow journalism.

Okoampa wants to take from Kwame Nkrumah what even the CIA-inspired coup of 1966 could not do. He writes: 'In such an atmosphere of convenient dishonesty, myth has been permitted to trump the truth of history, with the first premier of sovereign Ghana being mendaciously and deviously and superficially cast as the “epic liberator” of Ghana and continental Africa as a whole.' Just after this he proceeds to lie: ”Nonetheless, even as Mr. J. A. Braimah, a staunch and influential CPP operative, had occasion to painfully opine in the wake of the summary imprisonment and the deliberately induced death/assassination of Dr. J. B. Danquah, it very well appears as if the British colonial administration was far more interested in upholding and preserving the human and civil rights of their erstwhile Gold Coast colonial subjects than the Convention People’s Party under President Kwame Nkrumah.”

Those of us who do not only know the immediate cause of Danquah's death as heart attack, but also aware that this was occasioned by his own hallucinations of seeing the ghost of Nana Akyea Mensah, find it very difficult where to begin to debunk this kind of nonsense. It is a bit ironic to read from Okoampa praising the human rights records of the colonialists over and above that of the Nkrumah regime. I wonder what he would have said if Danquah had been hanged together with the co-conspirators who were involved in the ritual murder of Nana Akyea Mensah, the Odikro of Apedwa in 1944.

Indeed, it is just a big pity that J.B. Danquah did not hang with the other co-conspirators who were involved in the ritual murder and a sordid human sacrifice crime in the early morning of Sunday, 27th February, 1944 at Kyebi. It would have made our history very simple and spared us of the kind of nonsense Kawma Okoampa is so fond of writing. Danquah was a brain behind the ritual murder of Nana Akyea Mensah. The plot to kill Nana Akyea Mensah was hatched in the evening of Saturday, 26th February, 1944, after a meeting involving all the principal players in the stool blackening ritual, ended in a confusion as they assembled for final preparations for the burial of the departed King.

According to the case officer, ACP/Mr Nuamah, "the climax of the week-long funeral of the late Okyehene Nana Sir Ofori Atta I was set for Sunday, 27th February, 1944. The last rite marking the end of the funeral was the celebration of the WEREMPE custom, which was the act of blackening the stool of the late chief, formally making him "an ancestor in the line of kings." The divisive issue was the question of which human being's blood was to be used for the ceremony. Present was the powerful Nana Akyea Mensah, Chief of Apedwa, and traditionally commander of the Okyehene's royal bodyguard. Nana Mensah quite clearly explained to his colleagues that times had changed. The colonial authorities at the Christianborg Castle in Osu had taken over the power of life and death from the chiefs. It was no longer possible for the chiefs to sit anywhere and condemn anybody – if they used any human blood in the ritual, the Gold Coast Police would arrest them.

This did not go down well with the Akyem fundamentalists who wanted human blood and considered Nana Akyea Mensah's intervention as an attack on their traditions and power. They opposed Nana Mensah. It must be recalled that since the return of Dr. J.B. Danquah from Britain with a Ph. D. degree in philosophy, precisely the period between 1927 and 1943, Danquah served as Ofori Atta s secretary, ambassador, and legal advisor (Attorney General). And that it was this position that gave rise to J.B. Danquah s political career. It was with his help that Ofori Atta instrumented the Native Administrative Ordinance of 1927. Naturally his advice would be sought in such a contentious issue, even if it were not for his conspicuous presence in town, also for the funeral. (Further Reading: A Murder in the Colonial Gold Coast: Law and Politics in the 1940s Richard Rathbone, The Journal of African History, Vol. 30, No. 3 (1989), pp. 445-461 (article consists of 17 pages) Published by: Cambridge University Press. See also: Reap the whirlwind, Geofrey Bing, London, 1968).

J. B. Danquah, a member of the royal family and leading barister countered the authority of this "Kwaw Botwe" Krakyi (Akyea Mensah was not a lawyer, he completed his secondary education at Mfatsipim College as Emmanuel Ohemeng and and then worked as a clerk for the Akyem Abuawa State. The superior legal prowess of J.B. Daquah directed that the Akyem Abuakwa State was independent of the British Colonial rule, and the laws of Akyem Abuakwa State were not dependent upon British colonial law. J.B Danquah encouraged and assured legal protection to the conspirators: Asare Apietu, Kwame Kagya, Kwaku Amoako Atta, Kwadwo Amoako, Kwasi Pipim, Opoku Ahwenee, A. E. B. Danquah and Owusu Akyem-Tenteng who were later found guilty of ritually killing Nana Akyea Mensah, and sentenced to death by hanging on the neck until declared dead.

An unexplained phenomenon was that after weeks of a blanket of silence as to the whereabouts of the disappeared chief, the culprits started recounting their own macabre story one after the other, in what they claimed to be under the compelling demands of the ghost of Nana Akyea Mensah, the Odikro. The ghost apparently did not rest until all those directly involved with the murder had been brought to justice, before he turned his attention to the accessories. There are reports that Danquah was often haunted by the ghost, and must have been killed by Nana Akyea Mensah s ghost. This, to me, does not contradict the autopsy accounts of heart attack, since an intense fear of a determined Akyea Mensah could not have produced anything less.

It was Danquah fighting his own devils in his own mind that finally proved his undoing. Danquah is not the only hard-core criminal to have died in prison for absolutely natural causes. It reveals a special form of radical stupidity to ask the descendants of law-enforcers and politicians to consult the ghosts of their relations who were around each time a criminal dies prison. And for Okoampa to raise this issue with Sekou is therefore extremely grosteque, particularly considering the simple fact that Dr. Sekou Nkrumah has already paid his full citizenship dues as a civil society leader who fought and won with other Ghanaian freedom fighters, the current constitutional dispensation we are all enjoying to day.

Whilst Kufour was a clear PNDC collaborator and Under-Secretary for Agriculture until he was dismissed by Rawlings, Dr. Sekou Nkrumah was the Regional Chairman of the Greater Accra Branch of the Movement for Freedom and Justice, the famous MFJ that spearheaded the struggle for the 4th Republican democratic order from the hands of a determined PNDC dictatorship. So it is grotesque to read: “be thankful to democracy being practised in modern Ghana, thanks to Kufuor.“ It is rather Kufour who has to thank Sekou, even for the very chance to be a president of Ghana.

As for Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., his own confessions about his behaviour under the PNDC dictatorship smacks of such cowardice that I am even disgusted by the tenor of his article. "Those of us with a lode of fiery conscience would be utterly disgusted and feel unpardonably violated, but we would sport a poker-face demeanor, lest we be promptly branded as "Enemies of the Revolution" and find our very existence to be at risk.... Nobody then either bickered or griped about the "biased reportage" of The People's Daily Graphic. George Orwell (a.k.a. Eric Blair) had eloquently and poignantly taught us to be nimble for the sake of being able to keep our heads on our shoulders with his literary classic Animal Farm...Those were the days when many of my most intimate classmates called me Togbui Sri II; it was a sort of ethnic camouflage. And as you can vividly see, dear reader, such ethnic camouflage perfectly served its primary objective: it would enable me to live out those lunatic days of Ghana's "Tribal Imperialism" in order to document Flt.-Lt. Yor-ke-Garri's "Housecleaning Exercise" for the benefit of my children, compatriots and posterity." by Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., Feature Article | Mon, 06 Oct 2008.


I would thus like to conclude by calling on Okoampa to show Sekou some respect. He did not go and hide under his mother's bed and changed his name to Togbe Sri. As Mr. Ali Masmadi Jehu-Appiah puts it, 'One would have thought that considering the extra-ordinarily large size of your mouth, coupled with what you call your "lode of fiery conscience", you would have walked your talk with the courage of your convictions, like many ordinary Ghanaians did with just a pair of balls, instead of sporting "a poker-face demeanor" as Ghanaian judges were being butchered!' (Kwame Okoampa Is A Charlatan! by Ali-Masmadi JEHU-APPIAH) Sekou did not put on a poker face demeanour during the period of the PNDC misrule. He spoke out, as he is doing now, and whether what he says is right or wrong, that is another matter. What we dont need is every time he opens his mouth we have any Tom, Dick, and a Togbe Sri of an Okoampa making ugly noises!


Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!
–
Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro

Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro,
Blogs: Feature Articles: nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com,
Comments: theodikro.blogspot.com)

Comment: Akua Bonsu, How Much Were You Paid? Read Article: Oil Democracy - Government of Ghana, By GNPC For the Chinese, Feature Article of Sunday, 25 July 2010

Read Article: Oil Democracy - Government of Ghana, By GNPC For the Chinese,

Feature Article of Sunday, 25 July 2010 by Bonsu, Akua

Comment: Akua Bonsu, How Much Were You Paid?

Author: Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.

Date: 2010-07-25 06:45:02

Comment to: AUTHER;YABRE

Hi Akosua,

This is not the first time you are producing a very jaundiced piece about our national priorities and our prospects of benefiting from our own oil. Kosmos has not right to determine who our partners ought to be. That is why we are entitled by law to give consent. You cannot force us to give our consent if this is against our national interests. It is clear you prefer Kosmos to have a better deal than your own country. I can assure you that the spirited performance you have been putting up here on this deal can only work if your audience also receive the same amount of money you have been paid to write all this nonsense. It is far cheaper to obey our laws than to bribe the entire population to go against a government determined to right the wrongs against the people of Ghana!

The choice facing us is not between the Chinese and Kosmos, it is between Ghana and greedy multinationals who have no respect whatsoever for our rights as a nation. Kosmos claims it has not violated our laws in the sharing of restricted data with over twenty other oil companies, yet it accuses the owner of the data, the GNPC of sharing its own data with the Chinese because we cannot discuss any deal with the Chinese without showing the data to them. My question for Kosmos therefore is this: so how did they make this deal with Exxon-Mobil without sharing the data in question, if as they claim, it is impossible to make deals without sharing our data? Why bother to attempt such a deceit with such childish and stupid lies?

Whether you like it or not, we are going to insist that the right thing be done. It is extremely important that we establish a sound reputation of making our laws respected, otherwise we have nothing left to defend ourselves.

Kosmos is clearly ready to do anything rather respect our laws. They have been anxious to sell all this time. Initially, when the deal with Exxon-Mobil was rightfully opposed by the Government of Ghana, they decided no longer to sell their shares and rather changed their status as oil explorers into an oil production company. After claiming to be right all along, they came to Ghana to apologize to the President at the castle. All that we asked of them is to regularize the data breeches. This they have failed to do, so the apology was exposed as being clearly insincere and a cheap trick to break our laws and swindle the nation with impunity.

At the time Kosmos was selling to Exxon-Mobil, they knew very well that they would need the consent of the Ghana government in order to carry the deal. They thought they could go ahead and sell it all the same and then twist the arms of the government to accept the deal. This is not gonna happen! The arms of Ghana cannot be twisted by Kosmos and its accomplices like this finagler of a girl called Akosua Bonsu!

I am happy that this article is so poorly written that any intelligent and patriotic Ghanaian would clearly see it for what it is. It sounds like a comic relief just before Kosmos comes to its senses that Ghanaians can never be taken for a ride! I hope those who paid you for this poor job are stupid enough to be happy with the futile efforts rather than doing the right thing themselves!

We are going to wear them down with their arrogance! What the people of Ghana do with our oil is our own business! Kosmos must first OBEY our laws and then we can talk business. Is that very clear?

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!
--
* Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro

Comment on NPP Victory“...THAT WITH UNITY WITHIN OUR RANKS, ...“

Read story: NPP primaries would determine Ghana’s future - Akufo-Addo

Last Updated: Thursday, 22 July 2010, 15:70 GMT

 COMMENT BY NANA AKYEA MENSAH:


“...THAT WITH UNITY WITHIN OUR RANKS, ...“
After reading the latest feature article on the elusive unity in the party, The “Rascal Four” Must Be Censured For Crying “Wolf!”, Feature Article of Wednesday, 21 July 2010 by Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame,

I propose the following changes to the Nana Akufo Addo speech:

“I am confident that by the grace of God, and with unity within our ranks, if you elect me as flag bearer into the 2012 general elections, victory will come our way as a party,” he said.

Should rather read:

“I am confident that by the grace of God, and with disunity within our ranks, if you elect me as flag bearer into the 2012 general elections, failure will come our way as a party.”

There will be time when someone would be regretting the errors, not me, if no one speaks to people like Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr. !

A word to the fool is not enough, bit I do not have the time go give more, please take it or leave it! After all, I am not the one running for office.

Cheers!

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!
--
* Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro

Re: The “Rascal Four” Must Be Censured For Crying “Wolf!”

A Rejoinder to: The “Rascal Four” Must Be Censured For Crying “Wolf!”, Feature Article of Wednesday, 21 July 2010 by Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame





Hi grandson,

I am able to find it very funny that after your cousin has hijacked all the vital positions in the party, you can now conveniently insist on party procedure. For me, it is funny because it is like a thief asking his victims to report all stealing cases to him for investigations. I can assure you that for the victims however, this is no laughing matter. It is now coming to light the details of the tactic the Akufo Addo camp adopted to cheat in the last elections at Kumasi. What I find very curious and honourable of Stephen Ntim to have kept his cool and done what he was supposed to do: following party procedure, even if it meant writing his petition addressed to the National Chairman, who is the suspect in the case.

In my opinion, the National Chairman erred in his response to Mr. Ntim, for not involving fairly neutral hands to handle this particular highly sensitive petition. The reason is very simple: you cannot sit on your own case as an interested party and give judgement at the same time. This is a fundamental principle of jurisprudence which gives meaning to the so-called party procedure they are busy calling everybody else, except themselves, to follow. Yes, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey did not follow party procedure when he took it upon himself to respond to the complaint from Mr. Ntim, even though an interested party himself, saying "the election committee would rather consider resolving the issues concerning the electoral irregularities and not necessarily investigating the matter," And what matter was that, if one might ask? It is becoming increasingly clear that a very clever swindle took place at the Kumasi Congress which elected the current party executives.

The Alan Kyeremanteng camp which is now being maligned as not following party procedure, dutifully wrote a three page petition to the National Executive Committee through the National Chairman. They deserve to be applauded because following party procedure, meant a cheated Ntim writing a three page letter detailing his case and seeking appropriate remedies, to the cheating Jake. Despite this great sign of political goodwill and desire to keep the family strong, they received only a four-line response from the one who cheated him, saying "the election committee would rather consider resolving the issues concerning the electoral irregularities and not necessarily investigating the matter,"

It was Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, who sat in judgement in his own cause, who did not follow party procedure. What does the swift response from the Council of Elders meeting with the aspirants tell you? They reacted swiftly because of the press conference which threatened a boycott of the August 7th Congress if their legitimate grievances have not been looked into, BEFORE the Congress, and not AFTER, because they are also learning from their bitter experiences. You can only step on the balls of a fool once, not twice. Are the so-called Council of Elders not aware of the way the party chairman misconducted himself in the way he handled a sensitive petition from his own party opponent? What have they been waiting for to resolve all these outstanding issues?

And now, all of a sudden, every fool remembers something called party procedure. If the electoral committee was doing its job according to party procedure, there would not have been all these qualms and the need to follow any procedure in the first place. And the reason why party procedure is not being followed is because someone who is in control of the compiling wants to keep it that way for obvious reasons. The trouble is that these reasons are also quite obvious to the opponents. Whilst you have one side doing their own thing and not respecting the rights of others, it is a bit too much to ask the other side to play it by the book, especially, as the suspicion of vote rigging is as thick as is a blanket.

Whilst no one has chided Jake for not following party procedure, every one in the Akufo Addo camp is competing with one another as to who would shrill the loudest about following party procedures. A nice example of this is what my grandson is doing here, but there are more. The General Secretary of the Party, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie has for instance, not taken kindly to the approach adopted by representatives of the four candidates and hinted of possible sanctions against them. A member of the New Patriotic Party Council of Elders Appenten Appiah Menkah, an Akufo Addo hard-liner, has also expressed shock at the ongoing media war between four presidential candidates on one hand, and the national executives on the other. “I don't believe anything within the party should be in the public domain,” he told Joy News. A former General Secretary of the party, Dan Botwe was equally appalled with the decision of the four candidates to go to the press. He described as unacceptable the actions of the four, saying their grievances about voters register "is much ado about nothing".

If I were Akufo Addo, and I was very sure of myself of victory, I would do everything to ensure transparency as much as possible to ensure my political legitimacy. But Akufo Addo is not me, and it appears he has other campaign issues higher on his agenda than a dangerously transparent, free and fair elections that stupidly run the risk to scupper what seems to be a very elaborate and expensive scheme of rigging the elections in his favour. So far, it is not clear whether Akufo Addo really wants to win the 2012 elections or this is just a personal ego trip, irrespective of the results. If this is true, then he does not necessarily need any form of cooperation from the recalcitrant four. So why not, it is very necessary to insist on party procedure and doing nothing meaningful about the complaints until after the Congress, when, hopefully it might be too late, and as everyone knows today, Jake would be on stand-by to issue another four-liner.

Comment: Grandson, I am with you on this one! Comment to: On Abortion, Minority Leader Should Defer to Nana Feature Article of Tuesday, 20 July 2010 Columnist: Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame

Comment: Grandson, I am with you on this one!

Author: Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.

Date: 2010-07-19 19:20:54

Comment to: On Abortion, Minority Leader Should Defer to Nana

Hi grandson,

Good day!

I am pleasantly surprised that, for the first time since you were born, I find myself in full agreement with you. I have been anxiously looking for such an occasion to let you know that all the negative points you have been scoring have not been concocted out of personal hatred, but strictly based on what you write. You write by far, a lot of nonsense than the average mad man, so it is natural that the initial gentle NO becomes a scream in the end. I was even beginning to suspect a sick mind that enjoys public ridicule and assiduously works for it. That is why I stopped to comment on your articles.

But, hey, this one is a heck lot better. I agree with you entirely. The ideas expressed by the MP is in currency in most right-wing circles, so it is not at all a stranger in a typical NPP brain of this kind. I did not know you could be on the political left of any body, even the extreme right fascists. You have pulled a good and pleasant surprise, and your good old grandpa is feeling very proud of you as I write. Keep it up, my dearest grandson, abortion is a sacred right that no bigot must be allowed the power to pronounce on what must be strictly a doctor-patient relationship. I am with you all the long and hard way on this one! Have a nice day!

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!
--
* Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro
E-mail: nanaakyeamensah at gmail dot com
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Can the Four NPP Speak For Themselves?

COMMENT ON MYJOYONLINE.COM
Hardly surprising that the NPP August 7 date for the Congress remains unchanged. It is not for nothing that presidential aspirants seek to control the National Chairmanship and all top Executive positions long before the primaries. The outcome of the meeting was predictable. What is not clear is whether or not the four aspirants are really satisfied. I personally have my doubts. I believe however that since all parties have an interest to remain together than to break up in rancour and bitterness, there must have been sufficient political will to see eye-to-eye. It just happens that, often what appears to be commonsensical eludes the great elephant family, which has its own ways of doing things. Knowing what I know, this statement appears to be hiding something very bad from the public. They better gag the four aspirants very effectively, if they do not want any leakages of this strange quick-fix. It would have also been proper and more convincing if the four who have complained publicly could be given the permission of the party to tell us about their own unrestrained satisfaction following this meeting. It is in their own interest to be seen to be coherent. Once they have come public with their complaints, it is incumbent upon them to remember their own public and their apprehensions. If they allow themselves to be gagged by the Akufo Addo party hawks, currently in control, who is going to listen to them again the next time they call a press conference? We want to know from the four themselves, whether or not they are satisfied with the outcome of the meeting. Knowing what exactly their problem is, we want to know in a very convincing manner whether concrete and reliable arrangements were made that are transparent enough and what that was. Let the men who want to lead us be able to speak for themselves. I hope that is not too much to ask of a party that prides itself of being based on democratic principle.

We of the CPP wish them well.

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!
--
* Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro


Comment to the story:

NPP sticks to August 7 congress date after 'friendly' meeting

Last Updated: Monday, 19 July 2010, 19:25 GMT Previous Page

Email   Print Have Your Say ( 2 )         The largest opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has reiterated that its national congress to elect a presidential candidate for the 2012 general elections will come off on August 7, 2010. The date which was in doubt owing to threats of a court injunction by some disgruntled members of the party was confirmed on Monday after a crunch meeting of all the five aspirants of the party convened by the party’s Council of Elders. The meeting was also necessitated by a press conference organized by four of the five presidential aspirants last week which raised concerns about the party’s preparedness for the congress citing irregularities in the voters’ register and proxy voting. Their concerns were however countered by some national executives of the party including the chairman and general secretary. MORE....

The Odikro Speaks Through The Okyeame

The Odikro Speaks Through The Okyeame On Ghanaian Politics Today 1. On NPP In-fighting, 2. On Rawlings Reply | Nana Akyea Mensah  to okyeame show details 16:27 (1 hour ago) from Nana Akyea Mensah to "okyeame@googlegroups" date 19 July 2010 16:27 subject The Odikro Speaks Through The Okyeame On Ghanaian Politics Today 1. On NPP In-fighting, 2. On Rawlings mailed-by gmail.com Images from this sender are always displayed. Don't display from now on. hide details 16:27 (1 hour ago) Would appreciate comments. Good reading TheOdikro: A grammar of Pan-Africanism and its manners of articulation! NPP CONGRESS BLUES: THE BEGINNING OF AN INEVITABLE END? | Feature Article | ModernGhana.com News: http://bit.ly/9ZzOvH via @addthis Master J. John Rawlings, A Problem Child Of Ghana's Politics? | Feature Article | ModernGhana.com News: http://bit.ly/c0DSSL via @addthis 8:30 AM Jul 13th via web Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!! Cheers! -- * Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro. Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro E-mail: nanaakyeamensah at gmail dot com Facebook: www.facebook.com/people/Nana-Akyea-Mensah Blogs: Articles: /nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com/ Comments: theodikro.blogspot.com/ Reply Forward

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WAA LOOK: MUST SEKOU NKRUMAH THANK KUFOUR?

 Currently working on next article, would appreciate your comments:

Draft:

WAA LOOK: MUST SEKOU NKRUMAH THANK KUFOUR?

    
Avoka mate
Sekou is right but he should be thankful to democracy being practised in modern Ghana, thanks to Kufuor. If it had been his father's time he would have been sleeping at Nsawam Prison. He should be grateful President Mills for peacefully releasing him of his post. He should ask his father's ghost what J. B. Danquah did and his father sent him to prison to die.
COMMENT
Whilst Kufour was a clear PNDC collaborator and Under-Secretary for Agriculture until he was dismissed by Rawlings, Dr. Sekou Nkrumah was the Regional Chairman of the Greater Accra Branch of the Movement for Freedom and Justice, the famous MFJ that spearheaded the struggle for the 4th Republican democratic order from the hands of a determined PNDC dictatorship. So it is grotesque to read: “be thankful to democracy being practised in modern Ghana, thanks to Kufuor.“ It is rather Kufour who has to thank Sekou, even for the very chance to be a president of Ghana.

As for J. B. Danquah, it is just a big pity he did not hang with the other co-conspirators who were involved in the ritual murder and a sordid human sacrifice crime in the early morning of Sunday, 27th February, 1944 at Kyebi. The plot to kill Nana Akyea Mensah was hatched in the evening of Saturday, 26th February, 1944, after a meeting involving all the principal players in the stool blackening ritual, ended in a confusion as they assembled for final preparations for the burial of the departed King. According to the case officer, ACP/Mr Nuamah, "the climax of the week-long funeral of the late Okyehene Nana Sir Ofori Atta I was set for Sunday, 27th February, 1944. The last rite marking the end of the funeral was the celebration of the WEREMPE custom, which was the act of blackening the stool of the late chief, formally making him "an ancestor in the line of kings."

The divisive issue was the question of which human being's blood was to be used for the ceremony. Present was the powerful Nana Akyea Mensah, Chief of Apedwa, and traditionally commander of the Okyehene's royal bodyguard. Nana Mensah quite clearly explained to his colleagues that times had changed. The colonial authorities at the Christianborg Castle in Osu had taken over the power of life and death from the chiefs. It was no longer possible for the chiefs to sit anywhere and condemn anybody – if they used any human blood in the ritual, the Gold Coast Police would arrest them.

This did not go down well with the Akyem fundamentalists who wanted human blood and considered Nana Akyea Mensah's intervention as an attack on their traditions and power. They opposed Nana Mensah. It must be recalled that since the return of Dr. J.B. Danquah from Britain with a Ph. D. degree in philosophy, precisely the period between 1927 and 1943, Danquah served as Ofori Atta s secretary, ambassador, and legal advisor (Attorney General). And that it was this position that gave rise to J.B. Danquah s political career. It was with his help that  Ofori Atta instrumented the Native Administrative Ordinance of 1927.  Naturally his advice would be sought in such a contentious issue, even if it were not for his conspicuous presence in town, also for the funeral.

J. B. Danquah, a member of the royal family and leading barister countered the authority of this "Kwaw Botwe" Krakyi (Akyea Mensah was not a lawyer, he completed his secondary education at Mfatsipim College as Emmanuel Ohemeng and and then worked as a clerk for the Akyem Abuawa State. The superior legal prowess of J.B. Daquah directed that the Akyem Abuakwa State was independent of the British Colonial rule, and the laws of Akyem Abuakwa State were not dependent upon British colonial law.


J.B Danquah encouraged and assured legal protection to the conspirators: Asare Apietu, Kwame Kagya, Kwaku Amoako Atta, Kwadwo Amoako, Kwasi Pipim, Opoku Ahwenee, A. E. B. Danquah and Owusu Akyem-Tenteng who were later found guilty of ritually killing Nana Akyea Mensah, and sentenced to death by hanging on the neck until declared dead.


An unexplained phenomenon was that after weeks of a blanket of silence as to the whereabouts of the disappeared chief, the culprits started recounting their own macabre story one after the other, in what they claimed to be under the compelling demands of the ghost of Nana Akyea Mensah, the Odikro. The ghost apparently did not rest until all those directly involved with the murder had been brought to justice, before he turned his attention to the accessories. There are reports that Danquah was often haunted by the ghost, and must have been killed by Nana Akyea Mensah s ghost. This, to me, does not contradict the autopsy accounts of heart attack, since an intense fear of a determined Akyea Mensah could not have produced anything less.


It was Danquah fighting his own devils in his own mind that finally proved his undoing. Danquah is not the only hard-core criminal to have died in prison for absolutely natural causes. It reveals a special form of radical stupidity to ask the descendants of law-enforcers and politicians to consult the ghosts of their relations who were around each time a criminal dies prison.

Further Reading:

    * A Murder in the Colonial Gold Coast: Law and Politics in the 1940s Richard Rathbone, The Journal of African History, Vol. 30, No. 3 (1989), pp. 445-461 (article consists of 17 pages) Published by: Cambridge University Press

    * Reap the whirlwind, Geofrey Bing, London, 1968.
    * An account of the Kibi Ritual murder case, (Educational Press and Manufacturers Limited, Accra, 1985.

   * "WHERE IS THE CHIEF?" A true story, concerning the ritual murder of Nana Akyea Mensah, chilling to the bone marrow that Gloria Yartey has scripted into a play.

NPP CONGRESS BLUES: THE BEGINNING OF AN INEVITABLE END?

NPP CONGRESS BLUES: THE BEGINNING OF AN INEVITABLE END?

Feature Article | By Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro

Sunday, July 18, 2010

 

There is no doubt that Monday’s meeting between the National Council of Elders of the New Patriotic Party, NPP, and all five candidates aspiring to lead the party as presidential candidate for election 2012 on Monday, July 19, 2010 is a mend or break moment for the NPP. One side feels strongly that they are in a process of being given a raw deal whilst the other side contends there is nothing wrong, and that it is a shame that these aspirants are going public rather than using the party procedures. The general feeling is that the Akufo Addo camp which sees every advantage in an early congress is not in any mood to countenance what it sees as delay tactics by its opponents. The opponents also see what they describe as an ’Al-Qaeda’ within the party, a sort of Mafia that is determined to repeat what, they claim, went on at the Kumasi Congress which elected the party executives and to rig the impending August 7th Party Presidential Primaries in favour of one candidate: Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo. At the time of writing this article, Sunday, 18 July, 2010, no side seems to yield any ground. 

A boycott of the primaries by these aspirants would no doubt, cast a dark shadow and spell a big doom to the Akufo Addo camp which believes itself to be the front-runner in the race. In order to avoid this, they must yield to the contestants’ insistence on transparency. For example, at recent press conference, Mr. Felix Fonder, on behalf of Prof. Frempong-Boateng noted that though all parties had agreed to use a photo album for the voters’ register and give copies to all aspirants by June 2, this promise had not been fulfilled. He further revealed that the first draft of the register was received on the 16th of June and was 85% complete, even though it had less than a 60% photo complement.“Moreover it was in a state of disarray with significant errors including same photos with different names, photos of women with men’s names and vice versa, as well as numerous gaps with no photos at all.” 

All-in-all, this is not a document that they can work with and they have made that publicly clear. One would thus have to assume that the only option left to the Akufo Addo-controlled NEC of the NPP, is to soften their hardened stance, radically to address these concerns, and to bring the NPP Big Four on board. So far, what we are seeing is a continuation of the same thing. A statement making a brave public face on the internal wrangling signed by NPP’s Communications Director, Kwaku Kwarteng, said a meeting has been called at the Party Headquarters, Asylum Down, Accra at 2.30 pm on Monday, 19 July 2010. What is not clear is the fact that even though this statement is at pains to mention a series of previous meetings all aimed at a resolution of these problems, from the utterances of the aggrieved aspirants, the impression one gets is that the said meetings have been futile and complete failures. The very expression of confidence in these previous meetings is thus in itself very sinister, a sign that nothing new is going to come out of Monday’s meeting.

Meanwhile, the frustrations deepen and grow as we approach the August 7th date set for the primaries. The main grievance is focused on the voters register, but there are mor. The aspirants have made it clear that they are shy because they have been bitten once. For example, one of the candidates who contested the party’s chairmanship slot, Stephen Ntim, has voiced out some concerns relating to how the party’s electoral committee handled the grievances of aspirants. Mr. Ntim who lost the Kumasi congress to Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey is convinced that he was cheated. After months of keeping his cool, he finally described his painful experience on Asempa Fm’ Ekosii Sen programme on Thursday, 15 July 2010, citing how he was defeated due to the manner in which the electoral commission handled his petition. Mr. Ntim revealed that he sent a petition of about three pages long to the party chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey to investigate the alleged electoral malpractices that rocked the Kumasi congress which was snubbed by Jake. According to him not only did he wait for one and half months for a reply, but in the reply, which he claimed was made up of only four lines, Jake indicated that the election committee would rather consider resolving the issues concerning the electoral irregularities and not necessarily investigating the matter.

Obviously aggrieved, Mr. Ntim cited some incidents which he believed robbed him of his votes. He said he was not given a copy of the electoral register. Secondly, there were proxy votes of about five hundred which exceeded the accepted proxy votes of one hundred and eight. According to him there were eleven proxy votes against him alone. He also alleged that voters from TESCON were hand-picked to vote against him. Those who have been following the story for sometime can readily recall the hints dropped by a bruised Ntim just after the vote and his insistence on using the party's internal procedures. Pressed by a reporter, he would not leak much at that time. But following party procedure has meant complaining to the thieves who are bent upon stealing again. As Ntim's letter to Jake and the response he received attests, the bottom-line has been Jake is the chairman and Ntim is not. And cheated or not, that is not going to change any time soon, with Jake receiving petitions through internal party procedures and writing what he likes in response.

Thus despite the spin, it is clear that the four presidential hopefuls, Prof. Kwabena Frempong-Boateng, Isaac Osei, John Kodua and Alan Kyerematen have lost confidence in the party s internal procedure for addressing grievances. Four of the five persons vying for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential slot organized a joint-press conference on Wednesday, 15 July 2010, to air their grievances publicly. Political analysts are of the opinion that the very fact that these people were forced to come public is a sign that something is deeply amiss within the elephant family.  They had warned at the press conference that the electoral register that will be used for the party’s primaries on August 7, 2010 is not credible and so they will no longer co-operate with the party’s electoral committee.

The four complaining presidential hopefuls who held the joint press conference in Accra, slammed the electoral committee and the leadership of the party for what they described as “an electoral register in disarray.” Additionally, there are  reports that some party members are planning to seek a court injunction restraining the proposed congress from taking place as originally scheduled due to “unaddressed grievances in the road map to congress”. The aggrieved candidates in a press conference accused the national executives of presiding over irregularities which could tilt the election in favour of their competitor, Nana Akufo-Addo. The controversy aggravated, with Stephen Ntim, a failed National Chairman of the party and an ally to Alan Kyeremanten also wading into the controversy and accusing the national executives of plotting to rig the elections.

Quite naturally and expected of them, the lack of confidence in these meetings is not shared by the Akufo Addo-controlled National Executive Committee of the party. This is where the trouble is. The very statement announcing the impending meeting seeks to do the PR work by carefully enumerating the three previous attempts to resolve the problem: i. an earlier meeting of the National Chairman, General Secretary and the aspirants in June 2010, ii. a series of meetings between the Elections Committee and representatives of the aspirants since vetting was completed in June 2010, iii. and a meeting of the Elections Committee and the aspirants themselves on the 5th July 2010. But these complaints from the aspirants have been flowing like water after each of these these meetings. The last press conference did not take place before these meetings but after they had taken place. Thus apart from the cheap propaganda value, it appears the NPP National Council of Elders are at best merely raising a bandaged and festering wound. Amputations of the suicidal elephant to save it from its own self-inflicted wounds seem inevitable, but this may suit no one. 

The beast is wounded and it is on its way to become a political ancestor, rather than an active property-stealing demonic ass. Others are pretending that they can really go it alone and prosper. The General Secretary of the Party, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie has for instance, not taken kindly to the approach adopted by representatives of the four candidates and hinted of possible sanctions against them. A member of the New Patriotic Party Council of Elders Appenten Appiah Menkah, an Akufo Addo hard-liner, has also expressed shock at the ongoing media war between four presidential candidates on one hand, and the national executives on the other. “I don't believe anything within the party should be in the public domain,” he told Joy News. A former General Secretary of the party, Dan Botwe was equally appalled with the decision of the four candidates to go to the press. He described as unacceptable the actions of the four, saying their grievances about voters register "is much ado about nothing".
 
Party Chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, would also quite naturally have none of the grievances of the four aspirants. In a response, published by the DAILY GUIDE, on 15-Jul-2010, he reaffirmed the ”official position” that the NPP had an “absolute belief in the credibility of the voters’ register” and that the fine details of how the register was compiled had been well explained to all aspirants who understood the process. He was therefore surprised at the latest turn of events. A leading Member of Nana Akufo-Addo's Victory 2012 campaign Team, Mr. Boakye Agyarko also hit back at the four presidential aspirants for taking issues of the party to the public domain, instead of using the party structures to address their grievances. He described the 'modus operandi' used by the four aspirants as a 'childish' approach and appealed to the National Executive Committee (NEC) to treat it with magnanimous contempt. Mr. Boakye Agyarko, who contested the presidential primary of the party in 2007 said, he could not understand the posture and channels being used by the aspirants to seek a redress.

'I think that it is bad faith. We, the victory for 2012 campaign team would not do anything like that. We shall channel our grievances through the appropriate channels of the party. We believe that is the only way we can move forward as a party,' he said. In another development, the General Secretary of the party, Mr. John Owusu Afriyie, aka Sir John also said the press conference was not necessary because the issues the aspirants were speaking about were being addressed.

According to the General Secretary, upon receiving the letter of complaint, signed by the four peeved aspirants, the party invited them to a meeting to discuss the matter, but they could not wait and went ahead with the conference. He insisted that the voter register had already been validated and submitted to the Electoral Commission and that the complainants could have easily found out from the EC which they did not do. He was of the view that they should have picked the register and studied it before raising any concern, than wasting their breath to organize the press conference. On the issue of lack of communication between the aspirants and the party, Sir John disclosed that the party was always in touch with the aspirants or sometimes with their agents. He declined press questions that the four aspirants were fighting Nana, saying 'they are fighting the process of the election', which in this case is the same thing.

Supporting the claims of the four aspirants, the MP for Asokwa and former Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly Chief Executive, Maxwell Kofi Jumah has even gone further to state categorically that some ‘fake’ members of the New Patriotic Party whom he calls Al-Qaeda are doctoring constituency registers of the party. Kofi Jumah, who was speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme on Friday, said the act is “rampant” in the Eastern Region and believes the perpetrators intend to influence the outcome of the August 7 primary to elect a presidential candidate for the party. Contrary to criticisms that the action of the four – going public with their grievances – aimed at sowing seeds of discord in the party, Kofi Jumah said the four aspirants love the party, however they feel frustrated by machinations within the party that suggest they are being handed a raw deal.

He said those criticizing the four for going public with their grievances over alleged shortcomings in the party’s electoral register should also advocate an open door policy in the party, explaining that the party needs to first desist from creating situations that will cause its members to voice publicly whatever misgivings they may have. He said for instance if complaints or petitions are dealt with expeditiously, there will be no need for any member of the party to go public with the same issues. But when they petition the party’s leadership and see no action, they should not be blamed for washing the party’s dirty linen in public.

Kofi Jumah said those Al-Qaeda NPP members have long set about their clandestine jobs and should be told in the face that the NPP abhors their nefarious activities rather than taking on those who dare to speak about the wrongs. He said had those being criticized used the occasion to commend some good deeds within the party, even if publicly, none would have come out to condemn them. With the problem of internal party cohesion being a number one priority that is eluding the party, the Editor-in-Chief of the Insight newspaper says the NPP is heading to a defeat in the 2012 elections even if they manage to get united. Mr Kwesi Pratt says the NPP will lose the 2012 election even if the party “achieved 100% cohesion, “…the path to power must be one which is free of internal wrangling and baseless criticisms,” he told Radio Gold's Alhaji and Alhaji programme last Saturday. “…even if the party achieved 100% cohesion; it was totally united and all of its members voted for the presidential candidate of their choice, it will not guarantee them victory in the 2012 elections,” he said.

It is on this note that I wish them well in their deliberations, sorry, confrontations, today. They are trapped in a vicious web of contradictions. And it is not helpful that they would be negotiating with an  inflexible and arrogant man who calls the shots. So far, the slogan is that Nana does no wrong even if he calls you a goat. As hard as chisel when he is obviously wrong, it has been observed that it would be easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for the Akyem dwarf to admit that he is wrong. What I suspect might happen is that they are going to frustrate these aspirants to such an extent that they would have to come the the realization of who is the top dog and put up or shut up. So much for the internal party democracy at work!

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!
--
* Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro
E-mail: nanaakyeamensah at gmail dot com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/people/Nana-Akyea-Mensah
Blogs:
Articles: /nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com/
Comments: theodikro.blogspot.com/

References:
The frustrations of four NPP aspirants, Source: Ghanaian Chronicle Ghanaian Chronicle - Politics | 1 day ago
  NPP For Court Over August 7 Congress, Date: 16-Jul-2010 
 NPP Congress In Danger, Myjoyonline.com/Ghan, Date: 15-Jul-2010.

There are Al-Qaedas in NPP – Maxwell Kofi Jumah, Sunday, 18 July 2010, 16:21 GMT

Jake cheated me to win NPP chairmanship - Ntim

Last Updated: Thursday, 15 July 2010, 21:51 GMT

NPP Council of Elders call for ceasefire, Source: myjoyonline - Myjoyonline.com, Politics | 1 day ago

NPP Elders to meet Presidential Aspirants Mondayn Last Updated: Sunday, 18 July 2010, 12:41 GMT

NPP CONGRESS BLUES: THE BEGINNING OF AN INEVITABLE END?

There is no doubt that Monday s meeting between the National Council of Elders of the New Patriotic Party and all five candidates aspiring to lead the party as presidential candidate for election 2012 on Monday, July 19, 2010 is a mend or break moment for the NPP. A statement making a brave public face on the internal wranglings signed by NPP’s Communications Director, Kwaku Kwarteng, said the meeting will hold at the Party Headquarters, Asylum Down, Accra at 2.30 pm. What is not clear is the fact that even though this statement is at pains to mention a series of previous meetings all aimed at a resolution of these problems, form the statements of the aggrieved persons, the impression one gets is that these meetings have been complete failures.

i. an earlier meeting of the National Chairman, General Secretary and the aspirants in June 2010:

ii. a series of meetings between the Elections Committee and representatives of the aspirants since vetting was completed in June 2010:

iii. and a meeting of the Elections Committee and the aspirants themselves on the 5th July 2010:
 
Despite the spin, it is clear that the four presidential hopefuls, Prof. Kwabena Frempong-Boateng, Isaac Osei, John Kodua and Alan Kyerematen have lost confidence in the party s internal procedure for addressing grievances. Four of the five persons vying for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential slot organized a joint-press conference on Wednesday, 15 July 2010, to air their grievances publicly. Political analysts are of the opinion that the very fact that these people were forced to come public is a sign that something is deeply amiss within the elephant family.  They had warned at the press conference that the electoral register that will be used for the party’s primaries on August 7, 2010 is not credible and so they will no longer co-operate with the party’s electoral committee.

The four complaining presidential hopefuls who held the joint press conference in Accra, slammed the electoral committee and the leadership of the party for what they described as “an electoral register in disarray.” Additionally, there are  reports that some party members are planning to seek a court injunction restraining the proposed congress from taking place as originally scheduled due to “unaddressed grievances in the road map to congress”. The aggrieved candidates in a press conference accused the national executives of presiding over irregularities which could tilt the election in favour of their competitor, Nana Akufo-Addo. The controversy aggravated, with Stephen Ntim, a failed National Chairman of the party and an ally to Alan Kyeremanten also wading into the controversy and accusing the national executives of plotting to rig the elections.

General Secretary of the Party Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie did not take kindly to the approach adopted by representatives of the four candidates and hinted of possible sanctions against them. A member of the New Patriotic Party Council of Elders Appenten Appiah Menkah also expressed shock at the ongoing media war between four presidential candidates on one hand and the national executives on the other. “I don't believe anything within the party should be in the public domain,” he told Joy News. A former General Secretary of the party, Dan Botwe was equally appalled with the decision of the four candidates to go to the press. He described as unacceptable the actions of the four, saying their grievances about voters register "is much ado about nothing".
 
Party Chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, would have none of the grievances of the four aspirants in a response, published by the DAILY GUIDE  15-Jul-2010, he reaffirmed the ”official position” that the NPP had an “absolute belief in the credibility of the voters’ register” and that the fine details of how the register was compiled had been well explained to all aspirants who understood the process. He was therefore surprised at the latest turn of events. A leading Member of Nana Akufo-Addo's Victory 2012 campaign Team, Mr. Boakye Agyarko has hit back at the four presidential aspirants for taking issues of the party to the public domain, instead of using the party structures to address their grievances. He described the 'modus operandi' used by the four aspirants as a 'childish' approach and appealed to the National Executive Committee (NEC) to treat it with magnanimous contempt. Mr. Boakye Agyarko, who contested the presidential primary of the party in 2007 said, he could not understand the posture and channels being used by the aspirants to seek a redress.

'I think that it is bad faith. We, the victory for 2012 campaign team would not do anything like that. We shall channel our grievances through the appropriate channels of the party. We believe that is the only way we can move forward as a party,' he said. In another development, the General Secretary of the party, Mr. John Owusu Afriyie, aka Sir John also said the press conference was not necessary because the issues the aspirants were speaking about were being addressed.

According to the General Secretary, upon receiving the letter of complaint, signed by the four peeved aspirants, the party invited them to a meeting to discuss the matter, but they could not wait and went ahead with the conference. He insisted that the voter register had already been validated and submitted to the Electoral Commission and that the complainants could have easily found out from the EC which they did not do. He was of the view that they should have picked the register and studied it before raising any concern, than wasting their breath to organize the press conference. On the concern of lack of communication between the aspirants and the party, Sir John disclosed that the party was always in touch with the aspirants or sometimes with their agents.

He declined to accept that the four aspirants were fighting Nana, saying 'they are fighting the process of the election'. MP for Asokwa and former Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly Chief Executive, Maxwell Kofi Jumah has said that some ‘fake’ members of the New Patriotic Party he calls Al-Qaeda are doctoring constituency registers of the party. Kofi Jumah, who was speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme on Friday, said the act is “rampant” in the Eastern Region and believes the perpetrators intend to influence the outcome of the August 7 primary to elect a presidential candidate for the party. Contrary to criticisms that the action of the four – going public with their grievances – aimed at sowing seeds of discord in the party, Kofi Jumah said the four aspirants love the party, however they feel frustrated by machinations within the party that suggest they are being handed a raw deal.

He said those criticizing the four for going public with their grievances over alleged shortcomings in the party’s electoral register should also advocate for an open door policy in the party, explaining that the party needs to first desist from creating situations that will cause its members to voice publicly whatever misgivings they may have. He said for instance if complaints or petitions are dealt with expeditiously, there will be no need for any member of the party to go public with the same issues. But when they petition the party’s leadership and see no action, they should not be blamed for washing the party’s dirty linen in public.

Kofi Jumah said those Al-Qaeda NPP members have long set about their clandestine jobs and should be told in the face that the NPP abhors their nefarious activities rather than taking on those who dare to speak about the wrongs. He said had those being criticized used the occasion to commend some good deeds within the party, even if publicly, none would have come out to condemn them.


One of the candidates who contested the New Patriotic Party’s chairmanship slot, Stephen Ntim, has voiced out some concerns relating to how the party’s electoral committee handled the grievances of aspirants. Mr. Ntim who lost the Kumasi congress to Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey is convinced he was cheated. He described his painful experience on Asempa Fm’ Ekosii Sen programme on Thursday, citing how he was defeated due to the manner in which the electoral commission handled his petition. Mr. Ntim revealed that he has sent a petition of about three pages long to the party chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey to investigate the alleged electoral malpractices that rocked the Kumasi congress.

He noted that his petition was snubbed by Jake. According to him not only did he wait for one and half months for a reply, but in the reply which he claimed was made up of only four lines indicated that the election committee would rather consider resolving the issues concerning the electoral irregularities and not necessarily investigating the matter. Mr. Ntim cited some incidents which he believed robbed him of his votes. He said he was not given a copy of the electoral register. Secondly, there were proxy votes of about five hundred which exceeded the accepted proxy votes of one hundred and eight. According to him there were eleven proxy votes against him alone. He also alleged that voters from TESCON were handpicked to vote against him.


There are Al-Qaedas in NPP – Maxwell Kofi Jumah, Sunday, 18 July 2010, 16:21 GMT

Jake cheated me to win NPP chairmanship - Ntim

Last Updated: Thursday, 15 July 2010, 21:51 GMT

NPP Council of Elders call for ceasefire, Source: myjoyonline - Myjoyonline.com, Politics | 1 day ago

NPP Elders to meet Presidential Aspirants Monday

Last Updated: Sunday, 18 July 2010, 12:41 GMT

NPP Congress In Danger, Myjoyonline.com/Ghan, Date: 15-Jul-2010.

NPP For Court Over August 7 Congress, Date: 16-Jul-2010 
  
The frustrations of four NPP aspirants, Source: Ghanaian Chronicle Ghanaian Chronicle - Politics | 1 day ago

There are Al-Qaedas in NPP – Maxwell Kofi Jumah

Last Updated: Sunday, 18 July 2010, 16:21 GMT Previous Page

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Maxwell Kofi Jumah, MP for Asokwa Email Print Have Your Say ( 6 )   MP for Asokwa and former Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly Chief Executive, Maxwell Kofi Jumah has said that some ‘fake’ members of the New Patriotic Party he calls Al-Qaeda are doctoring constituency registers of the party. Kofi Jumah, who was speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme on Friday, said the act is “rampant” in the Eastern Region and believes the perpetrators intend to influence the outcome of the August 7 primary to elect a presidential candidate for the party. Four of the five aspirants for the post last Wednesday jointly held a press conference to call for a cleaner register. The four - Prof Frimpong-Boateng, Dr Isaac Osei, Rev Kwame Koduah and Mr Alan Kyerematen in whose camp Kofi Jumah operates, were all officially represented except Nana Akufo-Addo. Contrary to criticisms that the action of the four – going public with their grievances – aimed at sowing seeds of discord in the party, Kofi Jumah said the four aspirants love the party, however they feel frustrated by machinations within the party that suggest they are being handed a raw deal. He said those criticizing the four for going public with their grievances over alleged shortcomings in the party’s electoral register should also advocate for an open door policy in the party, explaining that the party needs to first desist from creating situations that will cause its members to voice publicly whatever misgivings they may have. He said for instance if complaints or petitions are dealt with expeditiously, there will be no need for any member of the party to go public with the same issues. But when they petition the party’s leadership and see no action, they should not be blamed for washing the party’s dirty linen in public. Kofi Jumah said those Al-Qaeda NPP members have long set about their clandestine jobs and should be told in the face that the NPP abhors their nefarious activities rather than taking on those who dare to speak about the wrongs. He said had those being criticized used the occasion to commend some good deeds within the party, even if publicly, none would have come out to condemn them. Story by Myjoyonline.com/Ghana

NPP Elders to meet Presidential Aspirants Monday

Last Updated: Sunday, 18 July 2010, 12:41 GMT

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Email Print Have Your Say ( 0 )   The National Council of Elders of the New Patriotic Party is to meet all five candidates aspiring to lead the party as presidential candidate for election 2012 on Monday, July 19, 2010. Prof Frimpong-Boateng, Dr Isaac Osei, Rev Kwame Koduah, Mr Alan Kyerematen and Nana Akufo-Addo will vie for the slot at the party’s August 7, 2010 presidential primaries. A statement signed by NPP’s Communications Director, Kwaku Kwarteng, said the meeting will hold at the Party Headquarters, Asylum Down, Accra at 2.30 pm. “The National Council of Elders is chaired by Mr Clement Tedam. In attendance will be the members of the Elections Committee for the August 7 primaries. “This meeting follows: i. an earlier meeting of the National Chairman, General Secretary and the aspirants in June 2010; ii. a series of meetings between the Elections Committee and representatives of the aspirants since vetting was completed in June 2010; iii. and a meeting of the Elections Committee and the aspirants themselves on the 5th July 2010. “The discussions at the Monday (19th July 2010) meeting will also be on the upcoming presidential primaries,” the statement said. Myjoyonline.com/Ghana

NPP Congress In Danger Date: 15-Jul-2010        Share Story With Friends  Comments  Email  Print Digg Facebook Twitter reddit StumbleUpon Delicious

Jake Related Stories Four of the five persons vying for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential slot say the electoral register that will be used for the party’s primaries on August 7, 2010 is not credible and so they will no longer co-operate with the party’s electoral committee. DAILY GUIDE has also received reports that some party members are planning to seek a court injunction restraining the proposed congress from taking place as originally scheduled due to “unaddressed grievances in the road map to congress”. Party Chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, in response, told DAILY GUIDE yesterday that the NPP had an “absolute belief in the credibility of the voters’ register” and that the fine details of how the register was compiled had been well explained to all aspirants who understood the process. He was therefore surprised at the latest turn of events. The four complaining presidential hopefuls are Prof. Kwabena Frempong-Boateng, Isaac Osei, John Kodua and Alan Kyerematen, who yesterday held a joint press conference in Accra, during which their spokespersons slammed the electoral committee and the leadership of the party for what they described as “an electoral register in disarray.” No reason was given why Nana Akufo Addo or his representative was not present at the press conference. Speaking on behalf of Isaac Osei, Ken Amankwah, one of his associates, said the four aspirants had lost confidence in the electoral committee and thus they would no longer work with it or look up to it as an objective group of persons tasked to work towards a successful and credible congress. Mr. Amankwa said the last straw that broke the camel’s back was a document currently in circulation purporting to be the rules and regulations agreed on for the August 7 primaries. “Two days ago, we saw this document and it has the rules and regulations but none of us has been given a copy and we were also not consulted, not even the four aspirants were consulted. We cannot take this anymore and we would no longer work with the electoral committee,” Mr. Amankwah noted. Yaw Boabeng Asamoah, who tried to save the situation, quickly grabbed the microphone and explained that Mr. Amankwah did not exactly mean that they were boycotting the electoral committee, but the latter insisted and repeated what he had said but said he would not explain to the journalists present where he saw the said document and who had it. Felix Fonder addressed the conference on behalf of Prof. Frempong-Boateng and noted that though all parties had agreed to use a photo album for the voters’ register and give copies to all aspirants by June 2, this promise had not been fulfilled. He said the first draft of the register was received on the 16th of June and was 85% complete, even though it had less than a 60% photo complement.“Moreover it was in a state of disarray with significant errors including same photos with different names, photos of women with men’s names and vice versa, as well as numerous gaps with no photos at all,” explained Mr. Fonder. Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey, when contacted, told DAILY GUIDE that the party’s voters’ register available to its headquarters was only a compilation of the registers that were received from the constituencies. “We all agreed, together with the aspirants that we should use the same voters’ register that was used for the constituency elections and what has being compiled, scanned and sent to the aspirants; we are scanning because the photocopies were not very legible so we invested some money and started to scan what came from the constituencies. “They themselves agreed that the compilation and scanning take time so rather than wait for the whole thing to be completed, we should rather let them have what has been scanned as and when they are ready until eventually, they will receive the whole thing. “A few issues were raised with regard to those whose names appeared without photos and those who had wrong names but we have had several meetings and agreed on what should be done with each specific case,” Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey added. NPP notables that turned up for the news conference included former General Secretary Nana Ohene-Ntow and former chief executive of the Food and Drugs Board Emmanuel Agyarko. Nana Prempeh, who represented Mr. Kodua at the news conference, virtually said nothing. Source: D-Guide

NPP For Court Over August 7 Congress Date: 16-Jul-2010        Share Story With Friends  Comments  Email  Print Digg Facebook Twitter reddit StumbleUpon Delicious

Related Stories As at press time yesterday, there were credible indications that the impending August 7 Congress of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) might be postponed. The Congress is to elect the Party’s candidate for the 2012 presidential elections. The postponement could be due to an injunction to be placed on the Party holding the Congress.One of the persons preparing to sue the Party said, “I am one of the fully-paid-up members who love this Party more than any individual or group of persons. If the National Executives do not see reason to postpone the Congress to enable all issues to be resolved, we will definitely serve the writ on the NPP on Friday, July 23, 2010.” Source: the Daily Dispatch Source: Daily Dispatch

The frustrations of four NPP aspirants

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Akufo-Addo's aide hits back
By Bismark Bebli &  Yussif Kewura
Nana Akufo-Addo
A leading Member of Nana Akufo-Addo's Victory 2012 campaign Team, Mr. Boakye Agyarko has hit back at the four presidential aspirants for taking issues of the party to the public domain, instead of using the party structures to address their grievances.

He described the 'modus operandi' used by the four aspirants as a 'childish' approach and appealed to the National Executive Committee (NEC) to treat it with magnanimous contempt.

According to him, it was unfortunate that when the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is currently in turmoil and Ghanaians are crying for the return of the NPP to redeem them, the four aspirants would resort to unorthodox means of seeking redress with an attempt to disregard the party structures.

'It is a show of bad faith to disrespect the party structure and the constitution. We did not resort to press conferences when seventeen of us were vying for the presidential slot. If we had done that the party would have collapsed by now,' he said.

'A this juncture, I will ignore it with contempt. What are they seeking for? Now that the NDC is in turmoil, it is incumbent on us to hold ourselves together because Ghanaians are looking up to us and I will suggest that the party ignore it and treat it with magnanimous contempt and forge ahead.

You don't need to punish them. This is because any attempt to punish them would bring some sort of confusion and the NDC would laugh at us because that is what they want,' he claimed.

Speaking in an interview with this paper, Mr. Boayke Agyarko dismissed claims that Nana Akufo-Addo was aware of the planned press conference but did not delegate any of his representatives to attend.

He said despite the fact that the actions of the four presidential aspirants were irritating, the party should remain focused and work towards a successful congress.

He was, however, shocked about the actions of the four aspirants, saying that they have met ten days ago and the issues of the irregularities were brought onto the table, and it was discussed to the satisfaction of all.

The four NPP presidential hopefuls, Mr. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen,                 Prof. Frimpong Kwabena-Boateng, Hon. Isaac Osei and Apostle John K. Kodua, through their representatives expressed disquiet about what they described as 'seeming lack of clarity in constituting an acceptable register for the conduct of the presidential primaries.'

To the worried and concerned aspirants, the digital register been adopted by the leadership of the party was in a state of disarray, with significant errors, stressing further that any attempt by the  election committee to go ahead with the unfinished digital register would create anarchy, confusion and above all disenfranchise potential delegates.

'In all fairness, we must acknowledge the major efforts the party had embarked on to consolidate the various constituency albums into one digital register. With hindsight however, perhaps that laudable process ought not to have been done as part of this particular primary, given the time constraints.

'This is because the first draft of the digital register received on the 16th June 2010 at 80% completion had less than a 60% photo complement.

Moreover, it was in a state of disarray with significant errors including some photos with different names, photos of women with men's names and vice versa, as well as numerous gaps with no photos at all.'

But Mr. Boakye Agyarko, who contested the presidential primary of the party in 2007 said, he could not understand the posture and channels being used by the aspirants to seek a redress.

'I think that it is bad faith. We, the victory for 2012 campaign team would not do anything like that. We shall channel our grievances through the appropriate channels of the party. We believe that is the only way we can move forward as a party,' he said.

The General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Mr. John Owusu Afriyie, aka Sir John has also commented on the press conference held by the representatives of the four presidential aspirants of the party.

Speaking in an interview with The Chronicle in Accra yesterday, Sir John said the press conference was not necessary because the issues the aspirants were speaking about were being addressed.

According to the General Secretary, upon receiving the letter of complaint, signed by the four peeved aspirants, the party invited them to a meeting to discuss the matter, but they could not wait and went ahead with the conference.

He revealed that the voter register had already been validated and submitted to the Electoral Commission and that the complainants could have easily found out from the EC which they did not do.

He was of the view that they should have picked the register and studied it before raising any concern, than wasting their breath to organize the press conference.

On the concern of lack of communication between the aspirants and the party, Sir John disclosed that the party was always in touch with the aspirants or sometimes with their agents.

He declined to accept that the four aspirants were fighting Nana, saying 'they are fighting the process of the election'.

NPP Council of Elders call for ceasefire

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A member of the New Patriotic Party Council of Elders Appenten Appiah Menkah has expressed shock at the ongoing media war between four presidential candidates on one hand and the national executives on the other.

The aggrieved candidates in a press conference accused the national executives of presiding over irregularities which could tilt the election in favour of their competitor, Nana Akufo-Addo.

General Secretary of the Party Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie did not take kindly to the approach adopted by representatives of the four candidates and hinted of possible sanctions against them.

The controversy aggravated, with Stephen Ntim, a failed National Chairman of the party and an ally to Alan Kyeremanten also wading into the controversy and accusing the national executives of plotting to rig the elections.

But Mr Appiah Menka is unimpressed with the procedures the four have adopted in having their grievances resolved.

“I don't believe anything within the party should be in the public domain,” he told Joy News.

“If you go to the press can the public solve the problem for you?" He quizzed.

He said the party has rules and regulations governing it and chided the four for not consulting the council before going public with their grievances.

The council has subsequently summoned all the five candidates for a meeting on Monday, 19th July, 2010 to thrash out their differences.

A former General Secretary of the party, Dan Botwe was equally appalled with the decision of the four candidates to go to the press.

He described as unacceptable the actions of the four, saying their grievances about voters register "is much ado about nothing".

Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana