FRANCIS POKU AND THE SECURITY SHENANIGANS

The past week has been very revealing and interesting for all Ghanaians who care about the security and stability of our country.The abrupt sacking of the national scurity minister omn sturday appeared to be an inocuois act of the prsident excercising his executive power to hire and fire, but the snowballing effect has been absolutely staggering.

By monday word going around nd newspaper reports suggestd taht there was a huge spat between the president and the former minister with couter accusations of enormous graft and sleaze. The president was alleged to have accused Mr. Poku of acquiring a number of expensive mansion at Trassaco Valley , a posh and expensive high market area in East Accra whre prices start at $300,000. Mr. Poku did not take kindly to that assertion and shot back at the president and thretened to go publc and make known the currupt nature of the president.This infuriated the president who promptly and unceremoniously sacked him.

On tuesday a daughter of Francis Poku surfaced and claimed ownership of the house at Trassaco valley but it did not end the issue there. Speculation and conspiracy theories were rife. Most political commentators and Securty Analysts were of the agreement that the president could have handled the whole issue in a much better way.

On wendesday the almighty howler happened as we were all preparing to put the issue behind us, it was reported that the house of Mr. Poku was surrounded by a team of armed military and police personnel confirming the rumours that he was being bput under house arrest. This was apparenettly botched as a stream of journalists made thiar way into the house of Mr. Poku . This included Mr. Kwesi Pratt who gave a live update from the house on radio. Clearly the government the securoity forces could not enforce a controversial and politically motivated house arrest in the full glare of the media. The government's spokespersons explain that what was actiually going on in Mr. Francis Poku's house was a "normal debriefing excercise". well this explaination could only come from this goverment as they have shown time and again taht they have an unlimited perchant for lying to the nation.

This was not the end of the drama; tuesday

POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE SLOWLY WARMING UP

Now the contest for the presidency has become clearer since the four major parties have elected their flag bearers. The politicking is underway and the heat is slowly creeping into the atmosphere. There is a lot at stake and the all the side have not hidden their preparedness to battle very hard if that is what it will take to achieve success. Prof. Atta Mills has quickly gone on the offensive by calling on Akuffo-Addo to stop abusing incumbency as well as the use of public resources to run his campaign. The NDC presidential candidate has also turned on the heat by issuing a strongly worded statement to the government and the Electoral Commission not to repeat the aberrations of the 2004 elections when the ruling part declared itself the winner of the polls. This statement was in light of the huge problems that have resulted from the badly run Kenyan Elections. Prof. Mills has dawn many parallels about what happened in 2004 and what is happening in Kenya now. The NPP media machinery including the bought, co-opted, and the engaged swung into action and attacked the NDC for “beating war drums”. You would think the NDC had called for a war if you dropped from Mars and didn’t know what the NPP and their media collaborators were made of. Akuffo Addo has also had his share o the heat. When the Upper East situation flared up, it alleged that he was the cause of it having gone and promised to help one of the feuding parting to prevail if he became president. The allegation festered for a while and when he decided to respond, he spoke in a tone that accentuated the perception that he was arrogant. Even the mundane and unexciting Jonh Mahama has had reason to be excitable when it was suggested in the media that Paa Kwesi Ndoum , the Presidential candidate of the CPP had started negotiations with the PNC for a possible alliance of the Nkrumahist forces. The force of the denial from the PNC camp suggested that it will take some doing before Nkrumahist unity could be achieved. After a long silence Rawlings finally spoke and the media reports suggested that his wrath was as much against the NPP as it was against one of his lieutenants. His suggestion that the altercation during the NPP congress was designed to rig the election for Akuffo Addo has fed into the NPP propaganda that the NDC and Rawlings are scared of Akuffo-Addo. These are very early days, however everything points to a hotly contested election this year.

CJA go ahead with Tamale protest

....Despite Police hiding behind flimsy excuses to curtail civil freedoms

Over the weekend the Committee for Joint Action went ahead to organize a protest march against the backdrop of intimidation and threat from the security services and other groups linked to the government. This was the second in the series of demos by the CJA against what they term as the harsh living conditions that Ghanaians are suffering from the bad governance of the NPP administration. For the second successive time the police service tried in vain to curtail the protest by adopting some very crude tactics and hiding behind some very flimsy excuses. The CJA, in conformity with the public order act , notified the police service more that two weeks in advance of their intention to demonstrate in Tamale. Just like in the first demo that took place on 11th December 2007 the police alleged that they are short on personnel due to the upcoming CAN 2008 and the fragile security situation in the Upper East. Even before the troubles in Bawku the police were citing lack of personnel and were cautioning the CJA to put their protest on hold for lack of personnel. This was the exact script during the 11th December demo. In their attempt to go to all lengths to stop the image damaging protest, they managed to obtain a court injunction to restrain the CJA from going ahead with the march. They however failed to appropriately serve the organizers and adopted the desperate measure of pasting the injunction on a hotel wall and going ahead to launch a media campaign to create panic among the CJA. Conversant with the tactics of the police, the leadership of the CJA countered back by coming out strongly to defy the threats and declare their intentions to go ahead with the demo. Backed by solid legal advice one of the leaders the CJA Kwesi Pratt urged the masses to turn up the following day while the police command continued to threaten they could not guarantee the safety of the protesters and will hold he leaders of the march liable should anything go awry.. A Group calling itself the PROGRESIVE ACTION GROUP surfaced in the evening of 11th January declaring chaos and mayhem if the protest went ahead. This group claimed that their investments in anticipation of the CAN 2008 tournament stood in dangers in the protest came on and that they would employ every means necessary to stop it from happening. The reaction of the police was a tacit acceptance of this new group and their threats . The CJA stuck to their plans and organized a well attended demonstration in Tamale on the 12th of January without incident. When the march was over the crowd converged at the Tamale Jubilee part to hear speeches from their leaders and they got a nasty reminder of the plans the security agencies had in store for them. A military helicopter flew very low over the crowd and spread massive dust on the demonstrators causing panic among them. It is amazing that the people who were complaining bitterly about the lack of civil liberties while they were in opposition are now adopting every means to curtail these liberties now that they are in power. It is however refreshing that there are people in this country who have dedicated themselves to fight for freedom and justice without fear in any circumstance. People like Kwesi Pratt have dedicated their live to lead this fight and deserve commendation and praise. Unlike others who have sold out and followed the corrupting influence of money he stands giantly in the way of oppression and tyranny. The freedoms we have in this country was not granted but earned through hard battles and we will fight any day to keep it that way.

THE NPP CONGRESS

..The Main Highlights and Aftermath

So the most expensive,vulgar, wasteful, highly competitive and totally predictable political event over the last 2 decades did com off on 22 december 2007 and all the predictions came true.

First it must be said that no amout of 'Kuffour Dollar' was spared to orgainise a very expensive congress. the layout and decorations did befit a coronation of a manarch....and in many ways it was a coronation. It was well attended by all the big fishes of the NPP from all over the world.i wonder if any ambassador or a consular stayed at post over the period.

The atmospfere was manic and the tension was palpable even from yhe very beggining.

The Mediocre president gave a speech patting he and his underachieving government on the back for a job "well done". It was a typical Danqual-Busia narrative of success as the president kept insisting that their ability to stay in power for 2 succeesive terms happens to be one of thir biggest achievemnt.

Then there were the speeches from the 17 presidential candidates. They had five minutes each to drum theirs messages to thye 2300 delegates fro the last time. Most of them were uninspring and the rest mediocre. however two of the candidates really stood out;Dr Konadu Apraku and Dr Arthur kennedy

After a very tense wait, the voting got underway at about 6pm. The voting was torturously slow as the delegates of from the 10 region went in one after the other to determine the fate of the 17 presidential hopefuls. The process went on in the whiles allegations of vote buying and influence peddling were bubbling under. Matters came to a head around 9:23pm when the National organizer of the Party, Lord Commey announced to the hearing of everyone that Paul Afoko , a member of the Alan Kyeremanten’s Team was distributing money (in Euros and Pounds) in the congress hall. According to sources a woman accosted Afoko in the corridors and even slapped him for attempting to bribe some people. This triggered a lot of anger which had been building up since the beginning of the campaign. It confirmed the longstanding belief among the other camps, especially Akuffo Addo’s Team who felt the combination of unbridled spending and perceived support from President gave Alan undue advantage. The anger led to very distressing and violent actions from those who felt hard done by. The party Chairman was seen furiously striking some unfortunate souls who dared to speak back to him. The voting was disrupted and pandemonium broke out all over hall. There was swearing, shoving and slapping all over the place. Some unlucky journalists did not escape the brunt of the violence and some were physically assaulted and removed from their positions. The violence dropped slightly when Paul Afoko; the man accused of distributing the money was removed from the hall and sent to a police station. However the violence and bedlam resurfaced when some animated delegates decided to call for Alan to be sanctioned. The violence was so bad that the police were nearly overwhelmed in protecting the ballot process. After another round of mayhem uneasy calm was restored and voting restarted. At the end of the voting process the next morning the visibly retired candidates and their spouses who had been captive in the congress hall were all suddenly alert and in a positive mood. Based on the amount of money they had spent on the delegates and the subsequent assurances made by them, they had every right to be positive. After some delays, the counting eventually got underway at around 8 am. At the end of the counting it was clear that two candidates had clearly taken very significant portions of the polls. It became clear that Akuffo Addo and Alan Kyeremanten’s were poised to go into a crunch second round. Akuffo Addo had 42% of the vote while Alan garnered 34% both of them falling below the 50%+1 vote required to win. The most shocking in the electoral contest was the amount of votes Arthur Kennedy, the New York banker who thought being the vice president of a mid size state bank in the US qualified him to the position of the president of the Republic of Ghana – could only muster 2 votes! All was set for a crunch second round between the president’s boy (Alan) and the party grassroots choice (Akuffo Addo). Suddenly the division in the party became much nuanced and the congress grounds split straight down the middle. The Akuffo Addo camp and the Alan camp. Word on the congress grounds got out that the rest of the candidates had all gone behind the Akuffo Addo camp, ostensibly to teach the president a lesson for supporting Alan. Alan did get the message and after a tense hold up of about 45 minutes all the candidates went into a closed-door meeting. they all emerged from the meeting apparently with a consensus ; abandon a potentially bruising and acrimonious second round, the outcome of which everyone in the hall knew. So Alan stepped onto the podium to address the crowd. He gave a long speech the central theme of which was to as he put it “concede victory”. It is significant that he chose to use that phrase instead of the more familiar and acceptable “concede defeat” . So Akuffo Addo was declared the default winner. It was an expected victory given the work he had done and his visibility among the grassroots……… and lets face it he spent the most money.