POWER PASS POWER

Former Minister for Information and National Orientation, Asamoah Boateng, a.k.a. Asabee, is finally coming to terms with the fact that his ‘kingdom’ has crumbled and that there is a power that surpasses all power, after spending the weekend with the same mosquitoes that bit E.T. Mensah in the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) cells.

Asamoah Boateng, after dodging the BNI and dictating to them when he would honour their invitations, finally ‘gave himself in’ only to be arrested and detained in line with the provisions of an arrest warrant secured by the investigative body.

What many Ghanaians, especially some supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who thronged the BNI offices, did not know is that the BNI had invited Asabee to their offices after his first arrest, but he failed to honour the invitation only to announce on one radio station or the other that he was not hiding as was reported earlier.

Apparently still living in the past when he determined who should be sacked or not, he chose to attend a funeral over reporting himself to the BNI even after he had been declared wanted. His eventual visit to the Bureau’s office was just a populist act to fool the public into thinking he was a law-abiding citizen.

The die had then been cast so he was arrested and detained to spend the night in the cells of the BNI where it is reported that he had a few mosquito bites. It would be recalled that Mr. E.T. Mensah, former Minister of Youth and Sports under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, had also been detained in 2001 under the NPP administration for allegedly plotting public disorder in the aftermath of the stadium disaster. Former President Rawlings also had a spell in the hands of the BNI under the NPP.

The NPP’s deliberate attempts at politicizing the death of a man alleged to have died of beatings in the hands of the police have been condemned by the family of the deceased.

Some sympathizers of the NPP invaded the offices of the BNI when they heard of the arrest of Asabee; the supporters, incited on a radio station by Zuleika Asamoah Boateng, wife of Asabee, tried to create confusion in the area but were dispersed by the police, only for Nana Ohene Ntow, General Secretary of the NPP, to attribute the death of Salifu Maikankan, the following day to beatings in the hands of the police.

Ohene Ntow, without any proof, claimed that the police beat him mercilessly, leading to his death; but the family disproved the claim and warned him to stop politicizing the death.

Meanwhile, Mr. Asamoah Boateng has been released but still faces charges in court over the alleged award of a contract to his sister-in-law’s compay for the renovation of the Ministry of Information and Nation Orientation building without her knowledge and the forgery of a letter in the name of Zita Okaikoi authorizing the payment of the contract sum. Stay tuned for more. Â