NDC Runs Riot

Daily Guide -- CERTAIN PEOPLE, claiming to be supporters and official serial callers from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), yesterday, stretched further the yawning gap between the largest opposition party and the media, when they went on the rampage, threatening fire and brimstone against Daily Guide, and particular staff members of the paper, on several radio stations, throughout the country.

Pouring scorn and venom, the so-called serial-callers were reacting to a Daily Guide, Wednesday November 2, 2005 front-page news report, titled ?Commotion Over Burger Votes, NDC Spoils For War.?

The face-less FM Radio terrorists claimed that they had been named in that report as preparing to use un-democratic tactics to overturn the Peoples Representation Amendment Bill (ROPAB), when it goes to Parliament. The report alleged that certain members of the NDC youth forum, who met at the Kuku Hill office of Prof.

Mills had each been given ? 500,000, to call into radio stations, and warn of impending mayhem, should parliament go ahead to pass the ROPA Bill, The paper reported that to voice the displeasure at the Bill the NDC youth would threaten to over-turn MPs cars, when they go on a demonstration to the House, to lodge a protest against the Bill.

Speaking on Happy FM?s Anopa Bosuo programme, hosted by Ekoaba Gyasi, on Wednesday, a certain Mustapha, claiming to be a serial-caller, issued death threats.

He warned the newspaper to retract and apologise to him or else, he would invoke further terrorist tactics, under his umbrella on the newspaper. Yet again, only yesterday, another person named as Mbeki also called the cell-phone of Baby Ansabah at about 10.19 am with the cell-phone number 024-2142239.

Oblivious of the import of Eid-ul Fitr (end of Ramadan fasting), Mbeki gave Daily Guide up to Monday, November 7, 2005 to retract the paper?s claim that he was one of those serial-callers who were allegedly given ?500,000 to kick against the passage of the Representation of the People?s Amendment Bill. He ominously cautioned that if by that deadline, the paper had not retracted the story and cleared his name, he would invoke fire and brimstone on the paper. He poured further vituperative remarks on the person of the author, and threatened to let him and the editorial staff, vanish from the face of the earth, forever.

The so-called Mbeki alleged that, Daily Guide has been maligning the integrity of others, without being restrained, or stopped, and that the paper continues to demonstrate a penchant for fabricating stories about NDC, and leading members of the party.

?As for me you can?t do that to me and go scot-free; I shall cut you into pieces,? he hissed.

Hardly had he jumped the phone, than another of his type also called into the programme.

He introduced himself as Alidu who claims he has been hurt by the inference that he had taken ?500,000 from an NDC top-shot to enable him to start campaigning on radio against the passage of the ROPAB.

He said being a university graduate, with a wife and children, how could he stoop so low to be bribed with ?500,000,while, another, by name Taleban, warned that if the author of the story, does not retract and apologise to him, he would make him face death on the edge of a cutlass.

On his part another, who called himself Musa, confirmed that he was a military man who served in the notorious disbanded 64th Regiment (Battalion) of Infantry. According to him, Daily Guide had reported that he was discharged from the 64th Reserve Regimen in 2001, whereas the truth is that he left the unit voluntarily.

In any case there was nothing like how he left the 64th regiment in the Daily Guide report, as he was insinuating.

Additional reports gathered by Daily Guide indicate that the regular meeting of the youth forum, may be re-located from the Kuku Hill campaign office to an undisclosed location, away from media attention.

Other reports also say that security, has been beefed up at the Kuku Hill Campaign office of Prof. Mills, as a result of the Daily Guide publications. Visitors are no longer permitted to stay in the compound of the building, without any identifiable business, while the corridors to the twice, defeated NDC flagbearer?s office has been declared a red-zone, and off-limit, to unfamiliar faces.

Certain familiar body-guards of Prof. Mills such as Baby Mustapha, Atsu, Akakpo, and Angola, both formerly of 64 Reserve Battalion Commando Unit, who gave security at the Takoradi Wahala march last Saturday, have been given the extra duty to protect the integrity of the office.

Meanwhile a Rawlings confidant Mr. Fifi Kwetey, President of the NDC Youth Forum, and also Features Editor of the Palaver has denied that he is a Togolese national.

Speaking on Radio Gold, Peace FM and Happy FM on Wednesday he conceded that although he dropped out of school in Lome, Togo, that does not mean he hails from there.

He revealed that he has Ada, or Ga-Dangme and Anyarko parentage, which make him a full-blooded Ghanaian. He concluded that he schooled in Ghana later on, and went to the University of Ghana adding that ?the fact that I went to school abroad (Togo) does not mean that I am not a Ghanaian.?

He therefore called on the Daily Guide to retract the story and apologise for describing him as a Togolese or he would go to court.

He added that the entire contents of the edition of the paper, contained nothing but a pack of lies. And on Radio Gold in Accra yesterday he pleaded for air-time to convince the station?s listeners about his Ghanaian citizenship saying the onus or burden of proof lies on the Daily Guide to prove that he is a Togolese national or else he would go to court.

Snippets of information picked up at the NDC headquaters, indicate that Fifi Kwetey, also writes and edits the Crystal Clear Lens, one of the two Lenses in the stable of the NDC sponsored newspapers, and also writes the nameless column Good Morning Mr Muuu.

NDC activists also speculated that Fifi Kwetey is originally from Aneho, in Togo, and also he left that country after his alleged involvement in a student demonstration against the late President Gyassingbe Eyadema of Togo, when the ring leaders were being smoked out.

He is known to be the right hand man of the former president of the Republic of Ghana and the convenor of the youth meetings at the Osu Kuku Hill office of Prof. Mills, every Sunday, where strategic electoral plans, are discussed, and taken.

Fifi Kwetey?s denial was preceded by a certain Mustapha?s attempt to rubbish the entire contents of the front page story of Daily Guide, about the alleged plots by the youth forum of NDC to wreak chaos and mayhem in the country, in event that the Representation of the People?s Amendment Bill is passed. However in his spirited attempt to punch holes into the credibility of the story, Mustapha ended up confirming the Daily Guide story.

He said that he has never set foot on the Kuku Hill campaign office of Prof Mills for sometime now, and so it was not possible for him to have been present to collect the alleged largesse of ?500,000, as contained in the story. When he was asked whether it was not true that the party was using a certain Kobby, who has lived in the United States of America (USA) for 12 years, to organize Diaspora residents to kick against what the Diasporan Voters Committee (DVC) came to Ghana to do, recently, as regards asking Ghanaians to allow them to vote, Mustapha replied thus: ?yes.? He added that Kobby, indeed returned from the US to organise Diasporan votes, but denied that there are plans to vandalise vehicles parked in the premises of Parliament on the day that the bill is going to be passed.

He also denied that the party had lined up a series of demonstrations against the bill, and that the NDC youth forum was trying to take over the CJA demonstrations.

Mustapha consequently, dared Daily Guide to prove that he was one of those who were paid ?500,000, by the so-called NDC top-shot, last week.

Further reports reaching Daily Guide, indicate that the self-acclaimed returnee from the US, Kobby, suddenly took ill, when Daily Guide hit the newsstands, on Wednesday.

In an interview with the author of the story on Radio Gold in Accra yesterday, the host of the programme, James Agyenim Boateng, suggested the vehicle number quoted in the Daily Guide story, under review, belonged to Mr Ato Ahwoi, since he was perceived to be the financier of the Committee for Joint Action?s (CJA?s), series of demonstrations, against the Government.

Later when Mr Ato Ahwoi was called, he denied owning any Toyota Tacoma with that registration number.

In the Daily Guide issue, under review, no direct mention was made of the name of the NDC top-shot who allegedly doled out the ?500,000 to each of 12 serial-callers at Kuku Hill, on October 23.