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General News of Monday, 12 February 2001

Source: GNA

Botsios Family Clarifies Funeral Report.

The family of the late Mr Kojo Botsio has issued a statement to clarify media reports, regarding the visit by the Botsio family delegation to President J.A. Kufuor on Friday, February 9 to inform him of his death.

The statement said, "regrettably, the reports have given the erroneous impression, though inadvertently, that it was the wish of the late Mr Botsio that he should be buried in the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and that the Botsio family requested that the President should permit this.

It said: "we wish to correct this misleading impression.

We would like to clarify that the late Mr Kojo Botsio never expressed such a wish. The request to President Kufuor, by the Apamhene, Nana Effrim, was premised on a request - apparently made by the late Mr Komla A. Gbedemah to the effect that he and Mr Botsio be buried in the premises of the Old Polo Grounds, where the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum is situated."

This symbolic location is where the late Osagyefo made the historic declaration of Ghana's independence on March 6, 1957, with Mr Gbedemah and Mr Botsio by his side.

The statement said the request to President Kufuor from the family delegation was that, "if feasible, Mr Kojo Botsio be buried at the Old Polo Grounds, alongside his colleague and independence comrade the late Mr Gbedemah, and near their cherished comrade, the late Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah - and not that he should be buried in the mausoleum itself, with Osagyefo."