Richard Anane Is A Liar

A former Mayor of Accra, Mr Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson has accused Dr Richard Anane of spewing lies about him with regards to events of 1998 in which he accused him (Blankson) of spearheading a campaign to impress on then candidate Kufuor, an elected flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party to step down for Nana Akufo-Addo to contest in his stead. He said it was impossible for him to have done that after Kufuor had won with over 1000 votes and Nana Akufo Addo had about 600 votes. �How do you go round and tell people that they should tell Kufuor to step down. Does it make sense? Who in his right senses will do this? I think it is not fair.� �It is not true, why should he (Anane) pencil me. Is it because Nana has made me his coordinator for Greater Accra and Volta? It is not fair,� Mr Adjiri Blankson said in a reaction. Dr Richard Anane had stated at the campaign launch of Mr Kyerematen last Saturday that, some people led by Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson approached the late B.J. Da Rocha in 1998 for him to impress on then flagbearer elect Kufuor, to step down for Akufo-Addo to take over. When Da Rocha refused, they again went to then party national chairman Odoi Sykes for him to prevail on Kufuor to step down. His statement was in reaction to recent agitations from some party members for all presidential aspirants in the party to step down for Nana Addo. Dr Anane�s explanation was that the call was not new and was similar to what happened in 1998, rather the over 140,000 delegates should be allowed to decide on their leader on October 18. Responding to the accusations, Mr Adjiri Blankson he never went to Da Rocha on such a mission and that the only time he sat with him (Da Rocha) was when they registered the party and they had to go for their certificate. �I have been in this game for umpteenth year. I heard him saying that I said Kufuor was sick and Kufuor should step down.� �This is absolute nonsense coming from a very senior Minister in our government. These things should stop. If he wants to campaign for Alan, he is for Alan and I am for Nana and Nana is doing better, so he had a chance at Lapaz to pontificate on the virtues of Alan but he chose to ridicule me when I have not seen any of these people.� �What I have realised is, if somebody is sinking, he wants to sink with someone else. Mr Adjiri Blankson said in 1998 he was the polling agent of Nana Akufo-Addo in Sunyani. �My offence was that at any time that the votes were counted, I will seek for a recount and I realise that some elders of the party were not happy. At the end of the day candidate Kufuor won.� Going back to history, Mr Adjiri Blankson said he was a close friend to Kufuor because of Victor Owusu and they were close friends, but in 1998 he saw Kufuor as being too soft and Nana could be a better candidate to face Rawlings and the PNDC turn NDC. �We needed somebody who could match the tantrums of the NDC so I began supporting Nana�. He said he does not believe in such banters on radio with regards to internal party issues but felt the need to respond to this one. He asked Dr Richard Anane to note that he was a life-long member of the UP tradition and this was not the time for him to come tell the public what he had done and added it was painful senior members of the party cannot sit down and discuss things among ourselves.