I never met Mallam for juju - Mpraeso DCE

The District Chief Executive for Mpraeso, Joseph Omari, has denied meeting Mallam Mohammed, an Atibie based spiritualist to plot on how to scupper the parliamentary ambition of the Minister for Communications, Dr. Omane Boamah, as reported by The Chronicle recently.

He admitted meeting Mallam Mohammed in his house, but categorically denied that they discussed issues concerning the minister and his party, the National Democratic Congress.

Mr. Omari, who called Mr. Emmanuel Akli, acting Editor of the paper to explain his side of the story, said Mallam Mohammed came to his house to solicit his assistance to acquire a radio license to operate an FM station at Atibie.

According to him, Mallam Mohammed told him that his partner in Germany had shipped some equipment for the operation of the radio station to him, but because he had not acquired the license to operate, the equipment are lying idle.

Mallam further told him (Omari) that he had already applied for the license but the National Communication Authority (NCA) was yet to officially allocate a frequency to him and that he (Mallam) would be very happy if he (Omari) could help to speed up the process.

According to DCE Omari, since the operation of the radio station would create employment for his people, he told Mallam Mohammed that he would also put in a word to see if the NCA could speed up the process of granting him the license.

Omari further told The Chronicle that at no point did they discuss any issue concerning NDC constituency executives and the Communication Minister, Omane Boamah. He did not also solicit any juju assistance from the Mallam.

Omari, who said Mallam Mohammed had come to his house to apologize to him over the bad publicity he had given him (Omari), said the Mallam told him, which is on record, that after he had first visited him to discuss the radio frequency matter, some group of people from the area approached him and scolded him for visiting him (Omari) in his House.

According to Omari, the group then played an audio tape, purporting to be that of his voice to the Mallam, indicating that he (DCE) was going round undermining the effort of the Mallam to secure the radio license.

To Omari, the voice purporting to be his, further stated that he was not happy with the coming of Dr. Omane Boamah to contest the Mpraeso seat. He said Mallam Mohammed told him that, after the group had played the voice to him, he thought it was genuine and was, therefore, shocked that after coming to him to hold discussion with him for assistance, he Omari could go out trying to undermine him (Mallam).

The DCE further told The Chronicle that he was going to refer the voice on the tape to the security agencies for proper investigations into the case and that all the claims made on the tape could not have come from him as DCE.

He noted that certain people in the area wanted create disaffection for him, hence their decision to come out with the concocted tape, but their plans had failed.

The Mpreaso DCE quoted the Mallam as saying that, he had never been to school and he could neither write nor read, so when the people brought the tape and a letter, which they read to him, he thought they were all genuine.

Joseph Omari noted that on two occasions that he contested the Mpraeso seat on the ticket of the NDC, he went through the primaries with others and won. He did not, therefore, understand why those who apparently oppose him should try to knock his head against that of Dr. Omane Boamah by coming out with concocted stories that existed only in their imaginations.