Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo
The National Chairman of
the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, has
turned himself into a preacher of the gospel, using the pulpit to console
himself with his current predicament.
He is currently in hot
waters after the police arrested and questioned him for any role he might have
played in the spate of kidnappings and arson that have rocked the country lately.
Original Trial
Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo
alongside the party’s Deputy Communications Officer, Anthony Kwaku Boahen, are
already facing three charges at an Accra High Court over a leaked audio
allegedly detailing strategies the NDC allegedly intends to use for 2020
elections – one being the kidnappings of family members of political opponents.
At the party’s 27th
anniversary thanksgiving service held at the Royal House International in Accra
on Sunday, the NDC Chairman who is an elder of the Pentecost Church, shouted,
“My hands are clean and my heart is clean!” although it was unclear why he was
making the declaration.
Danger Ahead
He said “for the past
three months, pastors would call me and say pray because we had seen danger
ahead of you.”
He also said “the battle
is not for me; the battle is the Lord’s and the Lord will win it for me.” His
statement appeared to be in reference to the charges he is currently facing in
the court.
“Recently, I prayed and
cried and I asked ‘God if you knew this was going to be my lot why did you
allow me to win this election?’ But the Lord asked me to go back and read
Exodus, and read what Moses went through. And he told me that the Egyptians
that you see today, tomorrow you will see them no more. Have the belief and
confidence that the Almighty God that we serve will redeem me and His name will
be glorified,” he preached.
2020 Projections
He added, “As we journey
into 2020, we have no strength to fight; we have no weapon to fight with but we
believe that the Captain of Israel, our Lord Jesus Christ, will be the leader
of our army and victory will surely be ours.”
Second Arrest
Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo had once
again been arrested and released last week over his alleged involvement in the
recent kidnappings after failing to honour an invitation from the
Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).
According to the police,
the invitation was extended to him to assist in the investigations of the spate
of kidnappings and arson in the country but his party prevented him from
honouring the invitation, compelling the police to go to court to secure a
warrant for his arrest.
Chilling Comment
Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo is
purportedly captured on the audio recording, among other things, calling for
Arab Spring kind of revolution in Ghana.
He had said on the tape
that the NDC was going to clash with the police deliberately so that there
would be chaos in the country and when that happens the international community
could blame the Akufo-Addo government for the violence.
On the kidnappings bit,
the NDC Chairman is captured on the tape as saying “… Nobody has slept in his
house. They even went to attack traders [and] some Imams had to come and plead
for them. People will also start capturing your mothers and fathers and keeping
them hostage until you show yourself up. So we need to go back quickly to the
drawing board and strategize.”
On the said tape, he
appeared to put some public officers in danger when he endorsed abuse and
violence against them.
He is heard declaring ‘war’
against the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, when he
said, “As for the EC chair, we must wage a relentless war on this EC Chair. Me,
she doesn’t want to see my face.”
In urging NDC supporters
to abuse the Chairman of the National Peace Council Rev. Prof Emmanuel Asante,
former President Bishop of Methodist Church of Ghana, he said “for the first
time, I’ll endorse insulting the National Peace Council Chair.”
Doctored Tape
The NDC has already come
out to claim that the audio recording had been ‘doctored’ to incriminate Mr.
Ofosu-Ampofo but a leading party member, Emmanuel Victor Smith, does not agree
with them.
“The tape was on Ghanaweb and everywhere. I have just
listened to it and I think it was his voice,” the former High Commissioner to
the United Kingdom said, adding “whatever I heard was his voice, unless
somebody can convince me that they can doctor things to make it sound like my
voice; and that much I don’t know whether someone has done that before.”
He said on Class FM that he had known the NDC Chairman ‘long enough’ to know it was his voice.
By Melvin Tarlue& Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
