‘I’m not a boy-boy’

The Member of Parliament for Klottey Korle constituency in the Greater Accra Region, Nii Armah Ashietey, can no longer stand attacks from some pro-government newspapers which have been running him down for the last couple of weeks.

They include the Inquisitor, Informer, Enquirer and the Al Hajj newspapers which have questioned his credibility as a man of his own.

He has come under a barrage of attacks from the aforementioned papers which claim he has been under the control and influence of certain people before, during and after last year’s Klottey Korle Parliamentary primaries, which he lost to the daughter of former President Rawlings, Dr Zanetor Rawlings.

It follows a court action instituted by Ashietey and one Nii John Coleman to demand justice to correct a wrong they said was of monumental proportion.

In a statement released in Accra yesterday, an obviously unhappy Ashietey, who is also a former Greater Accra Regional Minister, said it is “unfortunate, malicious and provocative for these newspapers to suggest that I am not my own man and that I am a ‘shameless boy-boy’ all because he had instituted an action in court to right a wrong.

“We are in court to get the NDC to enforce its own rules that a member shall not qualify to contest primaries for any parliamentary seat if that member fails to satisfy the requirements for the election of a Member of Parliament – a citizen of Ghana, 21 years and above, and a registered voter. That is all. I do not think that we are asking too much from the court to get the party to enforce its own rules,” he stated.

According to Ashietey, a number of friends, government appointees, businessmen and women and high-up NDC members supported his campaign during the primaries because they had the confidence, belief and conviction that all things being equal, he could retain the seat for the NDC in 2016.

That notwithstanding, he indicated that “these people have restrained themselves from the current court action for varying reasons that I very much respect, and it is most unfair for anybody to try and draw them into it.”

He therefore noted, “These newspapers have no justification whatsoever to peddle malicious untruths to bring me to public ridicule since I have maintained a very cordial relationship with the press.”

It was for this reason he considered it extremely unfair for these newspapers to continue to unnecessarily attack his personality without any basis and for no wrong committed.

That, he said, was because “high-ranking NDC members know the support and contributions I made from 2002 to 2008 to wrestle the constituency from the hands of the opposition,” adding, “yet today, misguided young men refer to me as a ‘boy-boy’!”

“In politics, I served the NDC in the Klottey Korle Constituency as a Branch Chairman and rose through the ranks to become Constituency Chairman,” he touted his credentials.

Apart from that, he emphasised, “I was once the Chief Executive of the then Tema Municipal Assembly, twice Minister of State and presently the MP for Klottey Korle Constituency and member of the Judiciary Committee of Parliament.”

“It is trite knowledge that for years I have shaped my personality as a firm and independent thinking individual making decisions on behalf of many Ghanaians. My working life, in politics and outside politics, attests to my high level of commitment to independent thinking and hard work,” he bluffed.