Blows At Kofi Wayo Meeting

Mr. Kofi Wayo and the acting General Secretary of the United Renaissance Party (URP), the yet-to-be-registered political grouping, Mr. Alhassan Saeed, were at each other’s throats last Saturday at the Golden Tulip Hotel, in Accra, in what appears to be a souring relationship between the sweet-talking Nima-born politician and executives of the party of which he claims to be the boss.

“I’m the boss of the party,” screamed Kofi Wayo; “You’re not,” were some extracts of the hot exchanges between Kofi Wayo and the Wahalaman, Alhassan Saeed, who at a point, told his antagonist that being a responsible person, he would not put up with the invectives any longer.

The hot exchanges at the swimming pool side of the hotel invited curious onlookers who were wondering what was going on.

Last Saturday’s scene was enacted when Kofi Wayo, soon after a trip he claimed he had undertaken to the United Kingdom to seek funding for the party, organised a meeting to discuss the outcome of the mission with executives of the party.

When Daily Guide called Mr. Saeed, he confirmed the story and narrated what took place at the said Golden Tulip Hotel meeting.

According to him, when he was invited to the Golden Tulip Hotel to attend the National Executive Committee meeting which Kofi Wayo had convened, he discovered that a quorum had not been constituted to warrant such a deliberation and so he decided not to be part of it, since doing so would be against the constitution of the party.

“I was asked to join since after all, Kofi Wayo had just returned from a foreign trip. They urged me to just sit in and listen to what he had for us, to which I obliged,” he said.

“I doubt if he really went to the UK.

I believe he was in Togo and not the UK,” Saeed said.

Kofi Wayo however told Daily Guide on Sunday that he went to the United States and not the UK.

Kofi Wayo, Saeed said, told the meeting that he had contacted a bank in the UK to raise a loan to finance the URP, but the financial house, he pointed out, had asked that for this to be possible, executive members of the party should be earning not less than $50,000 a month.

“Kofi Wayo said because of this proviso, he intends to reorganise the entire executives.”

Saeed said at this juncture, there was a reaction from the 2nd Vice Chairman of the party, Albert Kobina Otchere, who threw in a rhetorical question, “How many Ghanaians earn $1000 monthly?”

Continuing, he said Mr. Otchere said this proposal is against the slogan of the party, “Mercy for the Poor” and that this would scare away Ghanaians from joining the URP.

Mr Saeed said another leading member of the URP, Paul Nimako, remarked that if the party is talking about the poor in the country, Kofi Wayo’s idea can not be implemented and should not be made public, as doing so can disintegrate the party.

According to Mr. Saeed, even the Political Party Act 2000 abhors foreign funding for parties.

At this stage, Saeed said, heated exchanges ensued between him and Kofi Wayo.