Murder attempt on top NDC Cadre

Accra, Oct. 10, Chronicle - As boardroom wrangling tears the National Democratic Congress (NDC) apart and the party’s top guns blame the media, especially The Chronicle, for their woes, culminating in luminaries like Chairman Dr. Obed Asamoah and fire-eater-cum-hatchet man, Tony Aidoo, snubbing the paper, our intelligence reveals that, deep down at the grassroots level, the party continues to stagnate with hot-heads working to weaken the front through any means, however despicable.

On Friday, 3 October, this year, three taxis pulled up at the gate of the residence of Mr. Israel Annang, a Programmes Coordinator of a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) called the Ethics Foundation.

It was around 10:20 p.m., and Mr. Annang was, at the time, at the Korle-Bu Hospital. His youngest child, who is a student at the SDA JSS at Labone, was on admission, having been operated on for appendicitis.

About a dozen people were in the taxi and they were all armed with knives, cudgels, broken bottles and other offensive weapons. A couple of them were wearing earrings, and they were chanting war songs, calling for the blood of the occupant.

Neighbours told The Chronicle that the gang, suspected to be high on drugs, began pulling down the gate violently. Mrs. Rosemond Annang, the wife of Annang, protested at them from inside, demanding to know the reason for that act of madness.

“We are NDC. What we are doing here Joshua Alabi knows it. Where is your husband? He has been organizing meetings against us…. to pull the party apart. Tell him the harvest is ripe and he is going to reap what he has sown.”

“Oh. So Joshua Alabi sent you, eh. It is a pity, if you are truly NDC people, because we are all brothers and sisters,” the wife fired back as she, together with her two sons inside, held out against the marauding NDC forces of evil.

When the NDC goons later heard the mother call to the two boys to call the police, they retorted, “Police? We fear no policeman. We have the full weight and authority of the party hierarchy behind us. We will finish your husband between now and dawn. Mark it.”

By now, quite a crowd had converged on the area and The Chronicle sources whispered the name of a certain Wakiki as being the ringleader. The sources said Wakiki is on the run, after confirming the murder attempt on the man who The Chronicle learnt helped the party a great deal in the 1996 elections.

The first born of Israel Annang, a broadcast journalist working with an FM Radio Station at Swedru, formerly with Meridian FM, in a telephone interview with The Chronicle, intimated that he was coming home from town when he met the men at the gate. “A heavily built man approached me and asked if I were a visitor, to which I replied with a meaningless nod,” he stated.

“Is this Israel’s home? Get this message across to him. We are aware about the meetings he’s been holding in this house against us. Tell him we will finish him, sooner or later.” A neighbour, a student, told the paper that the stockily built chap is the guy called Wakiki.

Chronicle investigations further revealed that on September 9, this year, a Ministry of Agriculture vehicle (double cabin pick-up) with registration No. GV 1547 U with two occupants in the car pulled up at the gates and left a message to the effect that they “will return.”

The paper gathered from a known NDC activist in the vicinity that the two were Wakiki and Nii Amasah Namoale, a technocrat and Assistant Director at the Ministry of Agriculture, who is a likely candidate for the NDC in 2004.

“They are at the throat of Israel Annang because he is thought to be supporting another contender, also interested in the forthcoming NDC primaries, a certain Gans-Lartey, whose brother recently won an award in law practice in the United Kingdom.

Israel Annang has conceded to The Chronicle that meetings are held in his house but that the meetings are not under his auspices but under a certain Alhaji O. B. (Playboy) who on his return from Saudi Arabia noted cracks in the party at the grassroots level and decided to move to reconcile the various factions.

Wakiki was still on the run at the time of filing this story, and the Agric technocrat allegedly behind the plot to finish the top cadre was to be written to by the Cantonments police through the sector Minister for interrogation by state security, according to Cantonments police station sources

The Criminal Investigations boss at the Cantonments police station confirmed the story when The Chronicle contacted him. He said Israel Annang has made a report and that the incident happened in the absence of the complainant.

According to him as investigations are ongoing, he has directed the complainant to assist the police in investigations to arrest of the suspects. He indicated that since the report was made on Friday, the complainant had not reported to the police. Ghanaian Chronicle