President Mills Took His Wedding Ring Off

A senior aide to President JEA Mills has raised more questions in the minds of Ghanaians in his attempts to explain why in 2008 Prof Mills curiously wore a big black ring over a heavily plastered finger.

During Metro TV's Good Morning Show on Monday, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, Presidential Aide in charge of Operations, who called into the programme from the Western Region, where he was preparing for the President's visit, said that Prof Mills received a cut on his finger wearing the mystery ring after shaking hands with a chief in the Western Region during the 2008 campaign period.

But, just one little problem, though. The picture, published in the December 11, 2008 copy of the Daily Graphic, showed the plastered finger and the black ring on the left hand. "It is simply inconceivably disrespectful," says Dominic Nitiwul, the Member of Parliament for Bimbilla, "that the President would greet a Ghanaian traditional ruler with his left hand."

Furthermore, "And for a chief to squeeze Mills' left hand so hard to give him a cut sounds rather far-fetched. I also want to ask," Mr Nitiwul continues, "how so critical was the ring that even with a wounded finger the President still insisted on wearing it on that same plastered middle finger? Where was his wedding ring?"

But, on the telephone yesterday during the live TV programme, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye told the host, Shamima Muslim that the President was wearing his wedding band. When she pointed out to him that no ring could be seen on any finger of Prof Mills, the Presidential aide responded, "It's a small wedding band."

Shamima retorted, "But we can't see any other ring." "The plaster was covering it," he said. "The black ring and the plaster are both on the middle finger not the wedding band finger," she corrected. "Well," he said, "We took the wedding ring off because the cut on the other finger was hurting."

This raises another question, the Bimbilla MP points out, "If the pain was so much that wearing your wedding ring, the symbol of your loyalty to your matrimonial vows, on another ring would be painful, then why wear another ring on the actual wounded finger?"

The MP who first made the controversial claim last week that the then Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress wore a magic or juju ring for the 2008 presidential contest again on Monday, showed to television viewers that the ring with purported supernatural powers had some mysterious numbers engraved on it.

But in response, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye claimed that the ring, which critics suggest was given to Prof Mills by an occultist for spiritual reasons, rather carried the inscription, "I Love Jesus" Unfortunately, for the Presidential Aide, Mr Nitiwul pointed out, what evidence on the ring doesn't support Vanderpuye's claim.

The Bimbilla MP last week received a lot of public bashing for stating on Metro TV's flagship morning show that President Mills, who is famous for his Christian exhortations, wore a 'magic ring' for the 2008 elections and took them off after that contest.

The MP explained, ""President Mills wore that strange ring during the electioneering campaign; he didn't wear it before and hasn't worn it after. I am just relaying information from their own side of the political divide to the effect that he consulted an occultist, one of the varied and questionable spiritual consultations he invested in at the time, and one such feared and powerful occultist gave him that particular charmed ring with strict instructions. This is what I have been reliably informed and here is the evidence to support what I said."

Mr Nitiwul, a member of the New Patriotic Party, insists, "the President who touts himself as a devout Christian, more holier than the rest of us, the most God-fearing, owes it to the millions of Ghanaian Christians, including me, to explain to us why he was wearing a juju ring as alleged by his own people."