General News of Friday, 15 February 2019
Source: dailyguidenetwork.com
2019-02-15
Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Senior Minister
Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo has called out ex-President John Dramani Mahama for presenting the country in a bad light before foreign diplomats.
He said the showing of videos of the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election shootings to a section of the diplomatic community in Ghana, by the ex-president was un-nationalistic.
The Senior Minister believes the action of the former president amounts to trading off the country to the outside world.
“This is unpatriotic and shameful. It is because if he gathered Ghanaians, call it the academia or Ghanaian professionals or Ghanaian businessmen and he talked about matters of concern to him, I’ll have no problem. He’s a former head of state and then for a very important opinion leader but to gather foreigners and try to paint Ghana black is just not acceptable, ”Mr. Osafo-Maafo said.
On Wednesday, February 13, Mr. Mahama hosted the diplomatic community and showed about two videos to them.
One of the videos was on the funeral of the late New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon, Emmanuel Agyarko.
Whilst making reference to the funeral video, Mr. Mahama alleged some persons captured on the tape were hoodlums of the NPP, claiming that one of the male hoodlums was wearing an earring and so cannot be said to be a national security operative as he believe male personnel of the Ghana Police Service do not wear earrings.
In the second video, Mr. Mahama told the diplomats that same hoodlums who attended the funeral of the late MP were brought to Accra on January 31, 2019 to provide security for the NPP’s candidate for the by-election, Lydia Seyram Alhassan who is the spouse of the deceased lawmaker.
Six persons sustained gunshot wounds on January 31 at La-Bawaleshie park during the by-election, according to a report from the Ghana Police Service.
A Commission of Inquiry has since been set up by the Government to probe the violence that occurred on that day.
