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In the wake of President Mills arrival from a �routine medical checkup� in the United States of America, and upon recommendations made by his medical team to �cool off�, the Chairman of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Mr Ato Ahwoi, has been allegedly put in charge of running the nation. Sources at the Castle tell the New Statesman that President Mills� limited number of public appearances made in the aftermath of his return from the USA has been recommended by his doctors so ad to allow him relax and gain enough energy ahead of the rigorous campaign for the December polls. The best man, to make decisions in the absence of the President, according to castle sources is Mr Ato Ahwoi who has been a close confidante of the President and viewed by many as the de-facto Prime Minister of Ghana. The New Statesman can also reveal that Capt. Kojo Tsikata (Rtd) has now been put in charge of Ghana�s security apparatus exercising control and a supervisory role over the Defense Minister, Brig. General Henry Smith. The Vice President, who ordinarily should be the man running the affairs of the nation in the event of the President taking some time off, has been reduced to a mere Public Relations Officer for the Presidency and now being described as the �Face of the Presidency�. John Mahama�s distrust by the members of the inner sanctum of President Mills� administration has been by recent accusations made by functionaries within the NDC and at the Castle that he was the source of the Mills death rumours. The Vice President, according to sources at the Presidency, has still been unable to utterly dissociate himself from the accusations leveled against him, leaving the powers-that-be at the Castle with no choice but to assign to him the role of a �PR officer�, since in their opinion he can do a much better job in this role as opposed to one of a decision making nature. This is not the first that Mr Ato Ahwoi has been touted as the man-in-charge at the Presidency with two leading members of the ruling party leveling making this assertion in the past. It is recalled that Dr Ekwow Spio Garbrah stated that Ato Ahwoi was the key figure amongst the �Fante Confederacy� at the Castle who was undermining the authority of the President. Spio, whose one-time vitriolic engagement with Ato Ahwoi, bequeathed to Ghanaian politics, expressions like �Team B players�, in reference to what for him are mediocre ministerial appointees, was at the throat of Ato Ahwoi when he described him as being the man taking decisions for the president. He said in an interview on Metro TV�s Good Evening Ghana, in 2011, that, �On Thursday 8th January 2009, when President Mills had just been sworn in as President, I sat on the couch with him and he said, �Ekwow I would like you to be my Foreign Affairs Minister�.� The cabal threatened President Mills and eventually succeeded in dissuading him from making good his promise of giving him the Foreign Affairs portfolio. �I am not angry at all but I feel sorry for the president, in the sense that if he wants to give a job to anybody- it happened to me in this case, because there are other people who were promised various positions that they didn�t get � he�s not being able to do it because somebody comes to threaten and intimidate him (Mills) that �if you appoint this man, I and my brothers won�t work with you��that is the problem as far as the presidency of Ghana is concerned,� Spio fired. Mr Michael Teye Nyaunu in a meeting with NDC delegates of Ablekuma North, South and Central, in the run-up to the �FONKAR GAMES� also stated that Ato Ahwoi was the de-facto President of the Republic of Ghana. According to Michael Teye Nyaunu, Messrs Ato Ahowi and P.V. Obeng were usurping the powers of the president. �The only thing you will hear is that Ato Ahwoi and PV would say that they are sacking somebody� This is the extent to which we are going but we can�t say this in public,� he added He continued, �We are telling you how serious the thing is. Let me tell you, a lot of the people surrounding him have taken control. Every Minister is a President�, nobody is controlling any minister. They are all on their own.�