Politics of Tuesday, 3 February 2015
Source: The Al-Hajj
We have reported in past editions that the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), their flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo and the party’s power-thirsty strategists have devised crude methods against President Mahama, members of his family and whoever they think stands between them and the annexation of the Flag Staff House on January 7th 2017.
The aL-haJJ has reported that the NPP intended using all manner of unorthodox media and political strategies to paint the President, members of his government and family black in order to put their beleaguered presidential candidate at an advantageous position to win the presidency in the December 7th general elections.
Part of the strategy is to effectively use socials media to destroy the image of the President so that “the adage that says if you want to kill a snake, destroy its head,” will work for them in next year’s elections.
Other cyber warriors of the NPP were deployed to monitor the President’s socials media activities and spy on him and his family so that they can get otherwise guarded information to embarrass the President.
Perhaps one of the clearest manifestations of these crude strategy by the NPP as we inch towards the 2016 elections is the planting of a concocted story over the weekend, presumably by the social media operatives of the NPP, on alleged exchanges between the President and his Vice, Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur at a cabinet meeting.
The cooked story, which was callously attributed to The aL-haJJ, has all the traits of a desperate party desirous of using all means possible to win political power.
The aL-haJJ has issued a disclaimer on the false story and many well-wishers and sympathizers of the newspaper and Ghanaians, in general, have condemned the story and the cowards who authored it.
According to the false story attributed to the newspaper “The aL-haJJ can report that there were hot exchanges between President John Mahama and Vice President Amissah Arthur at an emergency cabinet meeting before President Mahama embarked for Ethiopia for the African Union Conference, on the state of the Economy and the poor performance of some ministers.”
“The relationship between the President and his vice can best be described as strained despite efforts by senior NDC figures to broker a truce. Relations are said to be so bad that the President does not want to be seen at any function with the Vice and has insisted for their schedules to be separate as much as possible.
“According to sources the Vice President told the President blatantly that he has surrounded himself with sycophants and apologists who did not have a clue and were not serious about tackling the current problems in the economy.
“In a rare display of fire not normally seen from a quiet man, he called for some ministers to be sacked including Seth Terkper the Finance Minister, Emmanuel Buah the energy minister for his handling of the energy crisis and Mr Mark Woyongo whose sycophancy he said had reach abnormal levels!
“Reports say the President got angry and banged his fist on the table shouting” You don’t tell me what to do. You think if I had my way you will be my Vice President? What do you do apart from sleeping in your office and not doing anything unless you are asked to do something? Get lost!!!
“The Vice President was said to have angrily got up to approach the President and had to be restrained by Haruna Idrissu and Fiifi Kwetey the Minister for Agriculture, who was said to have spoken to the President in an unknown dialect to keep calm.
In a quick disclaimer on Facebook authored and signed by the news editor of the paper, Mr. Amos Blessing Amorse, and dated 1st February, 2015, this newspaper denied ever publishing that false publication cruelly attributed to it by what one can comfortably describe as ‘NPP social media terrorists’.
“The aL-hAJJ’s attention has been drawn to a malicious and spurious story trending on social media with the above title and sourced to our outfit. We would like to state emphatically and without any shred of equivocation that The aL-haJJ has no knowledge of the said story.
“We find the said story as a spirited ploy by some unscrupulous and faceless elements in society to draw our hard won reputation and credibility into the mud and sow a seed of discord between us and the presidency.
“For the facts, the paper comes out only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, therefore, the said publication, which never featured in our last publication of Thursday, January 29, 2015 but is being widely circulated and credited to us, couldn’t have come from our outfit.
“It is true that we normally have our stories on our “official facebook” wall the morning after every publication, but the scandalous story started trending on social media two or three days after our last publication.
“Our own investigations have proved that the perpetrator(s) of this cruel and mischievous agenda wrote the malicious story using the name of one of our reporters and used it for their iniquitous agenda which was obviously intended to create false impression that there is strain in relationship between President Mahama and his hardworking Vice President.
“The aL-haJJ will be the last media outlet to publish such specious story without recourse to the ethics of journalism. We urge our avid readers and the general public to ignore the said story and treat it with the needed contempt it deserved.
“Meanwhile, we have referred the matter to the security agencies for further investigations.
The managing editor of The aL-haJJ, Alhaji Bature Iddrisu, on his part earlier wrote on his Facebook wall: Folks, the story making headlines on fb titled PREZ MAHAMA CLASHED WITH VEEP AMISSAH ARTHUR and sourced from The Al-hajj Newspaper is false and untrue. The AL-HAJJ hasn’t done such a story. Kindly ignore it. Alhaji Bature Iddrisu, managing editor. Thanx.”