Managing Editor of the �Daily Searchlight�, Ken Kuranchie, is wondering why the Director of Communications at the Presidency, Koku Anyidoho, is acting like the spokesperson for the National Security over MV Benjamin cocaine case, and has described the latter�s recent pronouncement and effusions on the matter as coming from someone who speaks from the �stomach�.
Mr Kuranchie considers it rash and indiscreet on the part of someone holding such a sensitive position like Mr Anyidoho to go to town publicly dropping clues about an on-going police investigation, if indeed the accused is really �singing like a canary�.
To him, the resurrected MV Benjamin cocaine case is simply a diversionary tactic by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to shift attention from some policy failures and to also minimize the putrefying stench the Woyome saga has caused the government.
In 2006, 77 parcels of cocaine aboard the vessel MV Benjamin disappeared mysteriously leading to the incarceration of one Kwabena Amaning alias Tagor and Alhaji Issah Abass. A key suspect in the case, Sheriff Asem Dake, popularly known as the �Limping Man� was recently arrested and is alleged to have dropped some sensitive information that could lead to the arrest of certain key figures in Ghana.
Following the arrest of �Limping Man�, the Director of Communications at the Presidency issued what some see as a caveat to persons connected to the MV Benjamin cocaine case not to dare try exiting the country.
�Today Asem Dake is in custody and ...I can promise you, President Mills is going to go to the bottom of this matter. Nobody, be it a former president, be it a sitting president, be it an erstwhile president, anybody who is involved in this cocaine matter..., you can be sure that President Mills will let the people of Ghana stand and point fingers at those who were involved in this dastardly trade...We will get to the bottom of this cocaine matter, 77 parcels of cocaine? When INTERPOL alerted us? We moved our vessels from the sea, brought them to the base claiming that they had run out of food rations. Our �hellis� (helicopters) were not allowed to use our airspace? All kinds of incredulous things happened in this nation. You had a president and his defence minister-brother and nothing could be done and these people are the ones who want to be pointing fingers at President Mills? ...They will be exposed one-by-one-by-one and nobody will be allowed to run out of this country,� Mr Anyidoho had said.
But speaking on OmanFM, the newspaper editor slammed Mr Anyidoho for his comments and alluded to certain verbal attacks made by him in the past against some respectable persons in the country.
�When Koku gulps down some bottles of beer and after a hearty meal of banku...omo-tuo, then he just opens his mouth and speaks without thought...He speaks from his stomach sometimes...I just don�t know but I think that sometimes when they (NDC activists) wake up from sleep, they don�t think through issues before addressing them�On this MV Benjamin cocaine �Limping Man� issue�a serious national issue�I am not surprised a so-called fine gentleman like President Mills will hold this man (Koku) in high esteem and travel around with him�He was the same person who said he hates Kufuor and doesn�t even want to see the face of the former President, and even rain insults on Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah in the run up to the NDC�s presidential primaries that he holds a cheap PHD,� Ken Kuranchie said.
It would be recalled that in October 2009, the Communications Director at the presidency denied reports in a radio interview that he hates former President Kufuor.
According to him, his comments were taken out of context explaining that his dislike for former president Kufuor stemmed from certain decisions of the former president.
�I may not like Mr Kufuor and indeed I don�t like his face because of certain things he did. I mean if you are leaving office and days before you leave you release armed robbers and it comes out that one of them is establishing an armed robbery academy, training young boys you don�t expect me to like him.�
Speaking on Joy FM, Mr Anyidoho also denied insulting former Communications Minister in the previous NDC government insisting that the reference to Dr Spio-Garbrah as �a man walking around like a peacock with a cheap doctorate degree� was not meant to be an insult.
�It was an idiomatic expression,� he stressed, adding that he (Koku) was incensed by Dr Spio-Garbrah comments that President Mills had fielded a �Team B� leaving out a �Team A�. According to him, he was particularly unhappy with Dr Spio-Garbrah�s claim that �Lobbying has been raised to a high fine art, and many have been appointed not on the basis of merit but by virtue of proximity to power, feigned loyalty, financial considerations and other factors.�
Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/Peacefmonline.com
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