I'll Shock Francis Poku - JJ

After charges of bribery against NDC MPs and Executives

EMERGING DETAILS of a recording of the "Family Meeting" held on April 3 at the Coco Beach Hotel, Nungua, procured by this newpaper has churned out further details of the meeting between the NDC Founder Jerry John Rawlings and members of the NDC not captured by earlier media reports.

GYE NYAME CONCORD can today reveal that the former president pledged at that meeting to soon shock National Security Minister, Mr. Francis Poku, whom he accused of having compromised the NDC MPs, compelling them to show an uneasy lack of committment to get the ruling Kufuor-led NPP out of executive office.

Without mincing words and without spelling out his thoughts in detail, the immediate past Ghanaian president said elements within the Ghana Armed Forces would soon embark on an operation that Francis Poku would not be able to thwart.

Rawlings cited a phone call-in by a man on Radio Gold that morning in which a caller who described himself as a serving soldier calling from Burma Camp, claimed that they were tired of NPP misdemeanours and would soon take action on their disaffection with the Kufuor administratrion, as proof of the action that would be taken without Francis Poku and his intelligence network being able to stop it.

In Rawlings' view, the National Security Minister was responsible for a lukewarm attitude on the part of NDC MPs who have been paid by him to slow down on the NPP.

Describing Francis Poku as a cunning man who sees himself as smart, Rawlings noted that one of these days "we would see who is smarter."

Rawlings’ attack on the National Security Minister is a far cry from his praise of the same man a little over a year ago at an ACDR meeting at Osu, Accra, during which he noted that Francis Poku was one of the few people in the NPP to whom he owes his life. At the ACDR meeting, he claimed many in the NPP wanted him dead and that their efforts have been thwarted by Francis Poku.

But in a sacrcastic statement at the “Family Meeting” at Coco Beach, Rawlings noted that he shares the frustration of the MPs and understands why they would resort to collecting money from the National Security outfit.

"Your salaries are meagre" he said, as if to say that this is why you are justified in selling your conscience, while reminding them at the same time that the NPP were not just political opponents, but sworn enemies.

He also did not hide his suspicion that the National Executives Committee of the NDC might be collecting their fair share of money from the Francis Poku-led National Security outfit.

Rawlings chastised the Kwabena Adjei-led Executive Committee and expressed worries over what he sees at the ineffectiveness of the Chairman, whom he accused of failing to lift the NDC from where former Chairman, Dr Obed Yao Asamoah, left it.

In Rawlings' words, he had always believed that Obed Asamoah was the real problem in the NDC, only to come to the new reaslisation that the NDC has equally found no better replacenent in Dr Kwabena Adjei. Strikingly, Rawlings turned around at this point and asked the National Chairman of the NDC, whom he had been criticising whether he was angry with him (Rawlings) over his views of leadership, insiders at the meeting told this paper.

Rawlings statements at the meeting, part of which were vastly carried by the media infuriated a significant number of NDC MPs after various indirect admissions by some NDC functionaries.

Hon. Mahama Ayariga, MP for Bawku Central and Prof Mills' Campaign Manager, who was at the Coco Beach meeting, confirmed the attacks on them (MPs) on a Joy FM's News File programme whne the news broke out.

Baba Jamal, Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, on Peace FM’s Krokrokoo programme also noted that the said meeting was an occasion where members were expected to confront each other on issues and bare their hearts out, and that what the Founder said was in the form of an advice, which the media should not take out of context.

In its official statement, however, the party expressed concern about a section of the media, which it said had taken bits and pieces of "what they might have heard" at the "second Family Meeting" of the NDC and added "their diabolical spin to suit their diversionary agenda".