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General News of Wednesday, 25 July 2001

Source: Evening News

Kakra Essamuah stages comeback

There are indications that the former NPP firebrand, Kakra Essamuah who fell out with his party months before last year’s election and asked Ghanaians to vote for Professor Atta Mills instead, is worming his way back into favour with President Kufuor.

Kakra Essamuah, until his dramatic switch of allegiance would not allow any criticism of his party’s actions by members of the Progressive alliance go unanswered, but openly called on Ghanaians in a letter to a national daily to vote for NDCs flagbearer Atta Mills.

Information from the grapevine is that the Special Advisor to the President, Dr Amoako Tuffour, is in the process of engaging Mr Essamuah to work in his outfit at the office of the President.

Whether President Kufuor is aware of this arrangement or not could not be immediately ascertained, but sources at his office confirmed to the paper that Mr Essamuah would be working with them but could not tell in what capacity.

They, however, explained that it was most unlikely that Dr Tuffuor would decide on his own to get Essamuah on board the Kufuor governance team without first clearing with the President.

The likely event of Mr Essamuah securing the job at the presidency is sure to arouse the anger of some NPP faithfuls who considered his action as “unpardonable” and a bailout at a time when the going appeared tough for the party.

Already a few NPP supporters at the party’s headquarters whose views the paper sampled wondered how the man could ever think of working with the same people he deserted.

“This is becoming too much; the other day it was Alhaji Inusah announcing his return to the Party and now this man. What do they think of some of us? Why must we struggle through thick and thin for self-seeking fellows like him to come and lick the sweet victory?” One supporter asked.

Mr Dan Botwe who contested with Mr Essamuah for the position of General Secretary of the party in 1998 would neither deny or confirm the story when contacted saying that appointment are the sole preserve of the President and not within the domain of the party executive.

After failing to win the bid as the Party’s general secretary at the party’s congress in August 1998, Essamuah withdrew into the shadows until his surprise letter.

He, in that letter, lauded President Kufuor’s opponent, Professor Mills then flagbearer of he NDC, for his performance at a press conference in Accra.