During Metro TV’s Good Morning Show on Monday, last week, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, Presidential Aide in charge of Operations, who called into the programme from the Western Region, where he was preparing for the President’s visit, said that Prof Mills received a cut on his finger wearing the mystery ring after shaking hands with a chief in the Western Region during the 2008 campaign period.
But, just one little problem, though. The picture, published in the December 11, 2008 copy of the Daily Graphic, showed the plastered finger and the black ring on the left hand.
The claim by the President’s aide has incurred the wrath of some Members of Parliament from the Western Region who are demanding explanation from the presidency as to why the then candidate Atta Mills could be that disrespectful to greet a chief with his left hand.
Kwabena Okyere-Darko and Catherine Afeku, MPs for Takoradi and Evalue Gwira respectively, believe President Mills owe the chiefs and people of Western Region an apology for greeting a chief from the Region with his left hand.
“It is simply disrespectful for anybody in Ghana to greet even an ordinary person with the left hand, and in the case of a traditional ruler it even becomes almost a taboo to show that kind of disrespect. So, if the President’s aide wants the whole world to believe that President Mills greeted the said chief with his left hand, then the people of Western Region demand explanation and apology from the President,” Mr Okyere-Darko said in a chat with the New Statesman.
The MPs also find it distasteful the claim that a chief from the Western Region could be that callous to squeeze President Mills’ left hand so hard to give him a cut.
In the view of the MPs, the claim creates a very negative impression about the chiefs and people of Western Region.
The MP for Bimbilla, Dominic Nitiwul, who first made the controversial claim last two weeks that the then Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress wore a magic or juju ring for the 2008 presidential contest again Monday last week, showed to television viewers that the ring with purported supernatural powers had some mysterious numbers engraved on it.
But in response, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye claimed that the ring, which critics suggest was given to Prof Mills by an occultist for spiritual reasons, rather carried the inscription, “I Love Jesus”.
Unfortunately, for the Presidential Aide, Mr Nitiwul pointed out, that evidence on the ring doesn’t support Vanderpuye’s claim.
The MP explained, “”President Mills wore that strange ring during the electioneering campaign; he didn’t wear it before and hasn’t worn it after. I am just relaying information from their own side of the political divide to the effect that he consulted an occultist, one of the varied and questionable spiritual consultations he invested in at the time, and one such feared and powerful occultist gave him that particular charmed ring with strict instructions. This is what I have been reliably informed and here is the evidence to support what I said.”
Mr Nitiwul, a member of the New Patriotic Party, insists, “the President who touts himself as a devout Christian, more holier than the rest of us, the most God-fearing, owes it to the millions of Ghanaian Christians, including me, to explain to us why he was wearing a juju ring as alleged by his own people.”
On the claim that President Mills had a cut on his finger after greeting a chief in the Western Region, the MP noted: “It is simply inconceivably disrespectful that the President would greet a Ghanaian traditional ruler with his left hand.”
Read more here: