I'm sorry: Otiko to Akufo-Addo

Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister Otiko Afisa Djaba has apologised to President Nana Akufo-Addo and Ghanaians for her media war with the Northern Regional Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Daniel Bugri Naabu.

She told The Pulse programme on Joy News on Tuesday that she rendered the apology to the president earlier that same day.

She also apologised to Ghanaians for her behaviour.

Ms Djaba had described Mr Naabu as a bribe-taking politician who goes around extorting money, cows and goats from people with the promise to secure them appointments in the Akufo-Addo government after the plain-talking NPP Chair had scuttled a meeting being held by the Minister on Friday, 5 May.

Apart from accusing Ms Djaba of failing to inform him of the meeting since she was in his territory, Mr Naabu also claimed Ms Djaba was plotting to scuttle the President’s appointment of a regional head of the School Feeding Programme.

He described the meeting as “illegal” and “unconstitutional”, saying even President Nana Akufo-Addo would not venture into the region to hold such a meeting without informing the regional executives.

In her reaction, Ms Djaba said Mr Naabu “came there to throw his weight about”, adding: “…As we speak nobody has appointed anybody for School Feeding. … I understand that Chairman Bugri wants to give this position to a woman, Dakora Bama or something, and then he also tried to cover up about issues concerning the DCE. I have nothing to do with the DCE. … I don’t know why Chairman Bugri wants to lie and use me as a cover-up for his problems.

“I want Chairman Bugri to understand that whatever is making him do the things that he is doing, he should be very careful. I’m the last person he would want to have trouble with because me, I respect myself, he should respect himself and stop lying about me.

“He cannot appoint School Feeding people, he’s not the only one in the region, he wants to be the one to appoint DCEs, Council of State elders, who and who, …all the things he collects from the people before assuring them [of posts], he should go and give the things back to them. … I want to use your platform to tell him to stop telling lies about me and to stop collecting people’s things and promising them jobs that he cannot give and when he goes and does that – after he has collected their money and their cows and goats – then he will come and put the trouble on Otiko. Otiko will not accept it. If Bugri wants trouble from me, then the trouble will come.”

Mr Naabu, in a subsequent counter, accused Ms Djaba of having had a hand in the murder of the NPP’s Upper East Regional Chairman Adams Mahama in 2015.