I never dismissed anybody with my ‘heads will roll’ comment – Anyidoho

Samuel Koku Anyidoho says his ‘heads will roll’ comment made during a Black Stars qualifying match in Kumasi, when a power outage disrupted the live broadcast of the match was not meant to dismiss anybody.

Opening up on what brought about that infamous comment, made years ago when he was presidential spokesperson, Anyidoho explained to Nana Aba Anamoah on Starr Chat last Wednesday 10 March that after the power outage at the Baba Yara Stadium, a journalist from Accra-based Joy FM called him and he spoke to him.

“All I said was that we are going to investigate and that we could smell sabotage in the whole thing...so, I say that we’ll investigate and heads will roll if anybody is found culpable. Never did I say anywhere that I have sacked anybody or anybody’s head had rolled,” Anyidoho disclosed. “Nana Aba, I never dismiss anybody. I never.”

Anyidoho suggested that at the time, he was only the Head of Communications at the Presidency and had no powers to sack the then Ashanti Regional ECG boss.

Manasseh Azure Awuni, then with the Multimedia Group had published that then-Vice President John Mahama had very little powers to act during the Atta-Mills presidency, and the de facto powers of Mills’ kitchen cabinet which included Koku Anyidoho was partly to blame.

Koku Anyidoho stated in the Joy FM interview at the time of the power outage: “President Atta-Mills is upset and everybody who has a role to play in this will have their heads roll.”

He added that the Ashanti Regional Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) would be fired and “all those in the line of fire would be fired.”

But on Wednesday, after some eight odd years, Koku Anyidoho denied those words vehemently.

He, however, admitted that the phrase “heads will roll” came out of his mouth.