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Opinions of Wednesday, 29 October 2014

Columnist: Daily Post

‘Daily Guide’ Smears Twum Boafo With Lies

With well-packaged lies that will fool even the devil, pro-NPP newspaper, Daily Guide, yesterday once more went on a vile smear campaign against the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Free Zones Board (GFZB), Mr. Kwadwo Twum-Boafo.

Mr. Twum Boafo’s crime for which the pro-NPP newspaper decided to feed Ghanaians a pack of lies about him to bring him to public ridicule was his standing up to about six supporters of the NPP who last Saturday positioned themselves at the Marriot Hotel in London and resorted to hurling very vulgar insults at President Mahama who was then at the hotel.

As the British police and others looked on, the six NPP supporters, hurled unprintable insults at the President. Some of the words were so vulgar that onlookers could be seen shaking their heads in dismay. Then at a juncture, Mr. Twum-Boafo, who was present, decided enough was enough and thus went to confront the six.

As the six continued to hurl very vulgar insults at the President, Twum-Boafo told them they were lazy people who had nothing to do hence have the times to come and do nothing but spend hours on end engage in the shameless behaviour of insulting their President.

This comment incensed the six who then turned their anger on the Executive Secretary, and hurled more foul words at him. At a juncture, one of them was heard shouting that Mr. Twum Boafo had had an affair with his mother. While this was going on, one of the demonstrators was seen recording the altercation with his phone which he has now posted on social media.

At the height of the exchanges, a couple of British police personnel moved in to whisk Mr. Twum Boafo away, leaving the six frustrated and humiliated. Then yesterday, the Daily Guide decided to complete their fight for them with a front page screaming banner headline “Twum Boafo on Rampage in London”.

The story, on page 3 of the paper, chronicled outright lies against the Free Zones Board, including a heavy dose of a rift between him and his ex-girlfriend, Joyce Okoree. Of course, the confrontation that took place in London had nothing to do with the rift between the two but was brought in to muddy the waters to make him look bad in the eyes of right thinking members of the public.

Lies

The paper first alleged that Kwadwo Twum-Boafo had an affair with his step-mother. This is an obvious lie because Mr. Twum Boado, has no step-mother. Enquiries by this paper yesterday turned up the fact that his father, an architect of no mean repute and his mother, have been married for fifty years and are still living happily together.

The ‘Daily Guide’ also referred to Joyce Okoree as Kwadwo Twum Boafo’s wife who had dragged him to court for divorce. This is another lie.

The truth, this paper’s enquiries reveal, is that Kwadwo Twum-Boafo and Joyce Okoree who works with the Ghana Standards Authority are not married and and have never been married. She cannot therefore be his wife and thus file for divorce in any court.

Joyce Okoree is an ex-girlfriend of Mr. Twum with whom he has a son. Since their relationship broke down, the two have been in and out of court over Twum-Boafo’s right to have access to his son. An Accra High Court cited Miss. Okoree recently for contempt for denying Mr. Twum Boafo access to their son.

With an axe to grind with Twum Boafo, many suspect she is behind some of the media attacks on the Free Zones Board. This suspicion, has been strengthened by the fact that she was recently in contact with a General Manager of a radio station who she pleaded with to run a story against Twum Boafo. The media man, however, refused to yield to her request.

The Daily Guide also published that Mr. Twum Boafo pulled a gun on his nine year old son recently. This is another lie that has been bandied as no proof has been given to substantiate this claim. Obviosuly, it is meant to tarnish his image.

Then also is the lie that he beat up his driver, Seth Boateng, in a fit of anger. The driver made this allegation against Mr. Twum Boafo at the Airport police station. However, the police, after investigations, discovered the allegation to be untrue. Rather, it was collaboration between the driver at the instigation of someone with an axe to grind with Twum Boafo and a radio station, Peace FM, to smear him.

There is no gain saying that the vile media attacks from the likes of the ‘Daily Guide’ and other NPP apparatchiks against Mr. Twum-Boafo is not going to stop for obvious reasons. Over the years, he has come out as one of the most vociferous critics of twice defeated NPP Presidential Candidate, Nana Akufo Addo and is cited as one of the main reasons he is unable to win at the polls.

For this, the NPP propaganda machinery and NPP activists will go to any length to denigrate. More Anon