Family of assassinated journalist, Divela Hussein Ahmed Suale, is highly insulted by actions of Assin Central Member of Parliament (MP), Kennedy Agyapong following the demise of their son, husband and brother.
Mr. Agyapong, some weeks after the gruesome murder of Ahmed, made a public offer of GHC100, 000 for anyone who could provide him vital information regarding the unfortunate incident and probable culprits involved.
The information according to him will help clear his name and expose the real ‘faces’ behind the dastardly act.
Ahmed’s family, at a press conference Monday, described the gesture by Kennedy Agyapong as not only deceptive but an exaggerated obstruction by the MP to divert the attention of the general public as well as an attempt to change the face of the on-going investigations by the security agencies.
Mustapha Iddrisu, an Uncle of the deceased and spokesperson of the family said the move was offensive and uncalled for especially because his ‘exposure’ of the deceased made the plot easier to effect.
“We are really offended by this act of Kennedy Agyepong and decry same. It is an insult to the conscience of the family that a man who called for harm to be visited on our son would only turn around a few months down the line after that call for harm has been overly subscribed, to say, he is placing a bounty on the head of those who may have acted on his call or gotten leads thereby to carry out the act.”
The family has appealed to the general public and the media to ignore “rants” by the outspoken politician and “to not further avail their esteemed platforms for such cacophony.”
Read the full statement below:
STATEMENT DEBUNKING ASSERTIONS REPORTED IN THE MEDIA ON AL-LEGED BENEVOLENCE OF MP FOR ASSIN CENTRAL, KENNEDY AGYAPONG IN RESPECT OF THE MURDERED JOURNALIST, DIVELA HUSSEIN AHMED SUALE
Ladies and Gentlemen, the family of the gruesomely murdered journalist, DIVELA HUSSEIN AHMED SUALE welcomes you all to this press briefing on the above subject. We regret that in this difficult moment in the life of the family, we have had to be engaged in what can best be described as a conscious and deceitful effort of some individuals in trading the dastardly assassination of our son for self-adulation.
Friends of the media, it has come to the notice of the family, through some media platforms of a shameful claim by Mr. Kennedy Agyepong to have ever met our late son, DIVELA HUSSEIN AHMED SUALE. This is a falsehood and a pre-emptive act at procrastinating the resolution of the issues surrounding the murder of our son and to disrupt the painstaking effort of well-meaning individuals, countries and the security agencies of Ghana from getting to the bottom of the matter through diver-sionary tactics. We are confident and hopeful that the thunder spirit worldwide and the innocent soul of our son will soon haunt out those whose hands are dripping with his blood.
It is further insinuated that the MP for Assin Central publicly claimed that he as-sisted with the payment of the school fees of our son in the year 2012. This asser-tion is nothing but the desperation of an overly excited person over the demise of our son and the exploitation of the “perpetual silence of the dead”. SUALE is one of many graduates in the family and all his siblings are sponsored from within the family resources. It has to be noted that our son entered the University of Ghana in the academic year of 2008/2009 and graduated in the year 2012. Curiously, the family solely paid the school fees of SUALE for three academic years of his studies (2008/2009, 2009/2010, 2010/2011), but the MP is suggesting that the family could not afford the fees for his last academic year’s (2011/2012) fees?
Indeed, if you intend to easily win a debate, go into a contest with the dead, for they may remain silent to crown you the winner. For purposes of emphasis, at no point in the entire education journey of our son was he assisted by Kennedy Agyepong. Our family has always had the wherewithal to fund the education of its members and Suale was not an exception.
In his desperate attempt to distract the work of the security agencies in unraveling the truth and to further his hateful conduct against Tiger Eye staff, the MP further claimed that our brother was no more a staff or member of Tiger Eye P.I. and that SUALE and Anas were not on talking terms prior to his demise. How could individ-uals at loggerheads, jointly secure visas to travel out of the Ghanaian jurisdiction for an assignment which was due in the first week of the month of February 2019? Maybe, Mr. Agyepong can assist us with a copy of the resignation letter of our son from the Tiger Eye P.I. group and withdraw his pay check as was deposited in his salary account for the month of December 2018.
Again how is it that someone who had fallen out with an organization would serve as a witness in the myriad of suits brought against the organization as a result of the work of that organization? Suale was one of the witnesses representing Tiger Eye at investigative state agencies. This is a fact. Some members of our family know that a day before Suale's death, he was with Mr. Anas. In fact, on the day of his unfortunate assassination, he was with Anas throughout and had informed some family members about collaboration between Tiger Eye and Attorney Gen-eral's office to prosecute those implicated in the #12 exposé. Mr. Agyepong has also alleged that Anas had not come to see the family before announcing the death of our son. We want the whole world to know that Mr. Anas was one of the fore-most people informed about the murder incident even before other family members could be informed. And this was because we knew the strong ties that existed be-tween our son and his boss, Anas, was more than blood relationship.
The family holds the view that the decision of Mr. Agyepong to place One Hundred Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHC 100,000.00) bounty on the killers of our late son is not only deceptive but an exacerbated obstruction to divert the attention of the gen-eral public and change the face of the on-going investigation by the security agen-cies. We are really offended by this act of Kennedy Agyepong and decry same. It is an insult to the conscience of the family that a man who called for harm to be visited on our son would only turn around a few months down the line after that call for harm has been overly subscribed, to say, he is placing a bounty on the head of those who may have acted on his call or gotten leads thereby to carry out the act. We call on the general public and the media, world-over to ignore such rants and to not further avail their esteemed platforms for such cacophony.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is important to state this fact once more. At no point did our deceased family member feel a sense of immense insecurity until Kennedy Agyepong splashed his photographs in the media with his accompanying incite-ment of violence against him. Another perfidious statement by Mr. Agyepong is that he only asked our son to be harmed if he ever entered his premise. Everyone who has watched the irresponsible video conducted by Mr. Agyepong knows that not only did he ask our beloved Suale to be harmed at his premises but every-where. He said, "if you meet him anywhere, beat him. If he comes here beat him". The first part of his call for harm is clearly non-location specific as he would want us to believe after the horrors of his conduct stare him in the face. Is it not even deceptive to think that his call for harm was in relation to his premise? Why didn't he simply show the picture of Suale to only his workers if he was indeed talking to only his workers and about his premises? What was he intending to achieve by fur-ther disclosing the residential location of our son and threatening to put out the car numbers of our son? Was it also directed to his staff at his premises?
We are appealing to Mr. Agyepong to allow the innocent soul of our son, father and brother to rest in eternal peace. We consider his latest attempt at dragging the name of one of the widows of our late son into his state of anarchy as an utter provocation. We have had enough of his hate for SUALE and his conscious diaboli-cal posturing.
The MP also keeps referring to our beloved son as “a dangerous boy” and seeks to insinuate that he was a rascal. We wish to state unequivocally that our SON was educated; he was a journalist of international repute. He worked hard, contributed to naming, shaming and jailing of corrupt and bad persons around the world and particularly in Ghana. He did an honest job and earned a living.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are calling on government and other relevant state insti-tutions and actors to call on Mr. Agyepong to refrain from talking ill of our late brother as that is provoking a lot of family members and the general public to re-spond to him in equal manner. The family has been going through a lot of pain to control the tempers of well-meaning citizens who want to respond as that could mare the speedy investigations that are on-going to get justice for our late son.
However if he doesn't refrain from it the family is not responsible for any deserving response he gets from well-meaning Ghanaians for his incentive and inhumane ut-terances. We would hold personally responsible should anything happened to our late brothers family and all those who have associated with us in seeking the ap-propriate legally sanctioned justice for our late son, brother, friend and national he-ro.
Friends of the media, we have full confidence in the security agencies, believing that Allah, the Almighty will continue blessing them with the requisite knowledge, will, and expertise to bring the killers to book. Our son was not a vagabond, as Mr. Agyepong likes to bandy about. He was a journalist – one of the best investigative journalists this continent ever produced. Thank you for coming. May Allah bless us all.
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