Jake Called President Kufuor "Ashanti Bastard" - Wayo

In a startling revelation on Radio Gold's "Gold Paper Review" programme last week Thursday, February 6, 2003, flamboyant Kofi Wayo, defeated NPP Parliamentary candidate for Ayawaso Central in the 2000 elections, blurted out in an exchange with Minister of Information and Presidential Affairs, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, that on August 8, at 9.00 p.m., whilst drinking gin in his house, Jake had described the President, John Agyekum Kufuor as "this Ashanti bastard", and wondered how Jake could today be talking of ethnicity.

So startling was the revelation that Jake momentarily lost his voice and stuttered for a moment or two before he could continue with the interview, whilst programme host James Agyenim-Boateng abruptly cut off Kofi Wayo, popularly called "Chuck", and apologised most sincerely to Jake for "spoiling his morning". In a very wide-ranging interview with the two NPP stalwarts which host James Agyenim-Boateng sometimes had difficulty moderating, Kofi Wayo also described Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey as a vicious, vindictive character who did not believe in democracy and who was likely to bring the Kufuor Government down. Kofi Wayo accused Jake of urging him (Wayo) to get on the airwaves and destroy or, in his own words, "bad-mouth" Presidential Press Secretary Kwabena Agyepong who he (Jake) felt was in competition with him over who should be President Kufuor's Spokesperson.

Kofi Wayo also accused Jake of being the one who during the 2000 election campaign used to urge him (Wayo) to get on the FM stations and "blast the NDC". Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey in turn accused Kofi Wayo of being a liar and a boastful character. So acrimonious did the interview get, often threatening to reveal the dirty innermost secrets of the NPP, that the host had no option than to terminate the discussion when it had got most interesting. Read the full text of the unedited version of the interview below.

Radio Gold Interview... JAMES AGYENIM-BOATENG TALKS TO KOFI WAYO, JAKE OBETSEBI-LAMPTEY Monitored

JAMES AGYENIM-BOATENG (JAB) - All right Wayo, let's rest that one there. You alleged, and it's a very serious allegation you made, that the Information Minister asked you to finish the Presidential Press Secretary Kwabena Agyepong. What does it mean to say, "Finish him"?

KOFI WAYO (KW) - He wants me to go on the radio and talk bad about Kwabena Agyepong. I can't do that because Kwabena Agyepong, here is a man who lost his father when he was a kid, right. Morality would demand in any civilised nation that such a person, you sympathise with him. The only thing I am mad at Kwabena Agyepong a little bit is that he should be at the NRC so he knows, his father's ghost will know he's fighting for him, for his father. This is the way I want it to be. But what is happening is against the rules. If you go to the eh, eh system and see what's happening, look at policemen, they can't pay school fees for their children. Soldiers, have no money to take transport to go to work. School children, you know, some are starving.

Come to my house most mornings, you know, you have to give them money to go eat. Just waakye, waakye, now the price is double. The schools have no toilets. Some kid went to toilet in the bush, a school kid, and I understand a snake bit her in the rectum. What kind of country do we have, when the Ministers are driving around in the latest land cruiser, you know, a land cruiser cost about 70,000, 70,000 dollars. If you are selling your cocoa at let's say a 1,000 dollars per ton, you need 70 tons of cocoa to give to the white man for one vehicle that it takes him one minute to make.

Now, do you know how many thousands of Ghanaian farmers grow 70 tons of cocoa? Do you know how many acreage is utilised? And you are telling me you got men who have gone to school, they have PhDs, PCCs, BBCs, all kinds per square inch in Kufuor's administration than anywhere in the world, and none of them can deliver us from this? And you people just sit there and take it? Go to the transport station, see what's happening. Did we change government or is it the same brutal