Kufuor Must Wihtdraw Obiri Boahen’s Nomination -NDC

In as much as the NDC Youth Forum accepts the fact that President Kufuor reserves the right to appoint persons he deems fit, as ministers of state, we believe that President must reconsider the nomination of Nana Obiri Boahen as Minister of State at the Ministry of Interior.

Nana Obiri Boahen, in reacting to the very acceptable Press Release of our Presidential Candidate, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, on the issue of the emergence of “Contract Killings” as a scary phenomenon in Ghana, displayed a mindset that is not only unacceptable, but is extremely dangerous. Speaking on Radio Gold Newspaper Review Programme on Friday, July 13, 2007, Nana Obiri Boahen said he sees nothing alarming about the emergence of the chilling phenomenon of “Contract Killings”.

According to Nana Obiri Boahen, who if he scales over the vetting process would be in the key ministry in charge of internal security, worse things are happening in other countries and so he does not see why Professor Mills, and for that matter Ghanaians, should be worried about people being murdered in cold blood by heartless assassins whose only motive is to shoot to kill their victims. The NDC Youth Forum finds it abhorrently unacceptable that a man who thinks that we should wait for scores of innocent people to be murdered in cold blood before raising the red flags, should be allowed to go anywhere near the Interior Ministry.

Indeed, less than a week after Nana Obiri Boahen sought to downplay the observable fact that the country is saddled with the contract killing menace, another Ghanaian, Retired Public Servant, Mr. Kwartei Quartey, was murdered in cold blood at his home in Tema by obvious hired assassins.

If President Kufuor is going to listen to the call of Professor Atta Mills, and restore hope and confidence in the security situation of the country, then the NDC Youth Forum is begging him to reconsider his decision and either find another portfolio for Nana Obiri Boahen or drop his name completely from the list of nominees since Mr. Obiri Boahen’s mindset is one that should not be countenanced.

It is also instructive to note that, this same Nana Obiri Boahen is the lead counsel for one of the factions in the Dagbon conflict in which two Gates are at loggerhead over the unresolved assasination of Yaa Naa Yakubu Andani and forty others. Can we as a nation trust him to provide an impartial ministerial direction to the police to come out with the truth?

The NDC Youth Forum is calling on the Clergy, Civil Society, and all Ghanaians to rise up and implore the President to withdraw the nomination of Nana Obiri Boahen for we cannot afford to have a Minister at the Interior Ministry who thinks that because hundreds of Ghanaians have not died from the bullets of paid assassins, there should be no cause for concern. Of course, if President Kufuor is appointing Mr. Obiri Boahen for purposes other than making Ghana a safe country, then he can go ahead and maintain faith in his minister designate.

Nana Obiri Boahen has an exceedingly unsafe mindset and Ghanaians cannot place our security in the hands of such a person.

Signed

Abdul Karim (Spokesperson)

(0243352807) July 18, 2007