General News of Friday, 6 February 2015

Source: Daily Guide

Minister dumps wife over cocaine saga

Information reaching Daily Guide indicates that Ebenezer okletey Terlabi, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Lower Manya Krobo in the Eastern Region, is reported to have packed out of his official residence, leaving behind his estranged wife.

The MP, who doubles as a Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Monday afternoon allegedly stormed his government bungalow apartment at Osu Ringway’ near the Statehouse and took away electrical appliances and stuffed chairs in the absence of his wife, Monica Terlabi.

He was said to have moved to join his mistress at East Legon.

Mr. Terlabi, who recently denied any link with his constituency youth organizer, David Tettey, over a narcotics-related case, was reported to have broken the main door to his official residence and taken away his home theatre appliance, flat screen plasma television, the chairs and picture frames together with his wife’s and that of the late President Mills and left behind his only picture hanging in the sitting hall.

Mrs. Monica Terlabi confirmed the incident on an Nkawkaw-based radio station, Agoo East, that her husband came to their five-bedroom apartment when she had gone to the Tema Harbour to clear some imported goods from Dubai.

According to her, the deputy minister had been found dating one Gifty Abbey, who is also a clearing agent at the Tema Harbour and who operates with the Lower Manya Krobo constituency youth organizer standing trial at an Accra circuit court for allegedly dealing in heroin.

The minister conceded that he has a girlfriend but it didn’t mean that he was sleeping outside. “It’s just that I normally come home late,” Terlabi told Daily Guide in a text message sent yesterday in reaction to the allegations after chasing him for about three days.

The MP’s wife stated that after the news broke that David Kwame Tettey had been busted over cocaine, her husband became suspicious, claiming that she had conspired with the former Lower Manya Krobo MCE, David Agbo, and one Ricky, former constituency chairman aspirant, to leak the matter to the media.

She stated that the husband, on that fateful day the news broke, sent her a text message that he would come to their matrimonial home to deal with her for the alleged conspiracy to defame him.

Mrs. Terlabi, aka Yaa Baby, said she left home Monday afternoon for the Tema Port and upon her return, discovered that her husband had broken the main door and taken away their belongs to his girlfriend’s house.

According to her, when she came back and saw what had happened, she went for a carpenter to repair the damaged door.

She said she suspected the husband had been having an affair with Gifty Abbey since March 30, 2014, adding that her husband was said to have travelled with Gifty to London and since then, the husband had stopped sleeping at home and had rather been staying with Gifty at an unknown area.

She posited that she was left with the house help, a security man and one of her daughters, who is having her National Service at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

Mrs. Terlabi said she had been feeling insecure since her husband started behaving that way as she did not know what might happen to her.

The minister’s wife indicated that after the incident, she went to the house of the NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, at Oyarifa near Adenta in the Greater Accra Region on Tuesday to inform him about her husband’s behavior. She said the NDC chief scribe asked her to exercise patience, and that he would call upon Mr. Terlabi to listen to his side of the matter with the aim of resolving it.

Daily Guide gathered that the MP and his wife - who hails from the Ashanti Region – were both staying together in Koforidua, the Eastern Regional capital, when he was a deputy regional minister during Victor Smith’s tenure as the regional minister, until he was appointed by President John Mahama as a Deputy Minister of Defence in 2013 and now Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources.

She however denied reporting the matter to the police since she had informed the NDC general secretary.

Mr. Terlabi told Daily Guide through a text message that the allegations made by his wife were untrue.

He claimed that he still had his belongings in the house.

The deputy minster indicated that his wife was just trying to disgrace him, and that it was an indication that she was requesting for divorce.

He stated, “Well, I haven’t moved out of my residence; I want you to come to my house and see for yourself if it’s true then you conclude whatever.”

He added, “My children are at home now; they are two girls. I have a very special affection for the two girls to the extent that I would not leave them. God forbid!”

He accused the wife of infidelity, claiming that she had been flirting in his absence.

“My wife has conspired with people to destroy me, and I don’t mind; she is flirting around while I am busy working,” Terlabi alleged.