Prof George Atta Payin Hagan, Chairman of the National Commission for Culture has categorically denied ever stating any where that he would contest the Convention People’s Party (CPP) flagbearership for the 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections.
Prof Hagan said in a telephone interview with “The Ghanaian Voice” on Tuesday 6 May 2003. “I have not yet decided to contest the CPP flagbearership again. If any newspaper has quoted me as saying so, it is not true. I remember two ladies who described themselves as reporters interviewed me because according to them, they heard some people during this year’s independence day celebration at the Independence square wanting to field me as the party’s flagbearer.
Prof Hagan reacted to a report in “The Voice” newspaper of last Monday in which Dr Abubakar Alhassan, National Chairman of the CPP was quoted by a radio station late last week as challenging at a press conference at Tamale the loyalty of the CPP members who have accepted post in President J.A. Kufuor government. Dr Alhassan reportedly asked those CPP members to declare their stand.
Sounding a little unhappy with the way the media misrepresented him to be preparing to vie for the CPP flagbearership and the medium through which the CPP chairman issued his challenge, Prof Hagan noted; “I do not respond to such statements. The Chairman is my good friend but there is no occasion that he had addressed any message to me in connection with what they say he said about those of us in the government.
“If there is issue, I think it is the responsibility of the Central Committee of the party to deal with it. The central committee has not questioned me since I accepted this position. I do not want to pay football in the media. I have not at anywhere declared my intention to contest the 2004 elections.”
