The trial of Anthony Ofori Tei aka Don’t Jealous, chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Yilo Krobo constituency of the Eastern Region, will begin today at the Koforidua Circuit Court B.
He has been accused of threatening to kill David Ayertey, a broadcast journalist of Radio Mountains, Adukrom, over a reportage.
The NDC guru, driver of Yilo Star, a micro-finance company at Somanya, was last Friday arrested by the Koforidua Central police for allegedly threatening to kill the reporter for filing a story on pregnancy during the writing of the recent Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) at Nkurakan, near Koforidua. The NDC chairman was granted bail last Saturday after some of the regional executives of the party had intervened.
David Ayertey, as gathered, during the time the junior high school finalists were writing the BECE, reported on some of the local radio stations in the region that four females of Nkurakan M/A Junior High School wrote the examination while they were pregnant.
After the report the chief of the town, Nene Okpatey, summoned the reporter to his palace and allegedly fined him to pay three sheep and two bottles of Schnapps for disgracing the community in the media, and for that matter, to the entire world.
DAILY GUIDE gathered that the reporter said he could not afford the items and so his (reporter’s) accoutrements were seized. He reportedly went to the Nkurakan police to report the matter and the police went to the palace to retrieve the equipment and gave them back to him.
Mr. Anthony Ofori Tei, who got upset about the reporter’s failure to pay the chief’s fine, allegedly picked a matchete and stormed the house of the reporter at about 12 am last Thursday with a purported intent to butcher David Ayertey, but the latter was said to be absent at the time.
When David Ayetey had information that the NDC constituency chairman was searching for him – even in the Church of Pentecost – reported the matter the very night to the Eastern Regional Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Yeboah Nketiah, who reportedly went to rent a hotel room for the reporter to pass the night, and Mr Ofori Tei was subsequently nabbed.
He purportedly said during interrogation that he acted the way he did because he was drunk.
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