JAK Held Hostage By Feuding Party Executives

For over two hours last Saturday, President J.A. Kufuor was held hostage by the threat of some NPP gurus in the Dangme West District to openly demonstrate against him and his Government.

The President, who was the Special Guest of honour at the annual Mgayem festival of the Shai State in Dodowa, had to delay his arrival for fear of encountering the demonstrators till the National Security apparatus did intelligence monitoring and countered the scheduled demonstration.

President Kufuor thus arrived at the durbar grounds at 2:20pm, several hours after other invited guests sat on tenterhooks, wondering if the President would come after all.

As early as 6:00 am, personnel of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), whose activities The Heritage had been monitoring, swooped on Mr. Osei Badu Banahene, a former NPP constituency organiser and political foe of the Dangme West DCE, over reports that he was wanted for allegedly plotting and masterminding the planned demonstration against President Kufuor.

Mr. Banahene was taken away for interrogation after which he was briefly released to go home, only to be re-arrested some few hours later for yet another interrogation.

The Heritage can confirm that Mr. Banahene was again arrested for a third time and the constant harassment of Mr. Banahene nearly resulted in mayhem as some NPP youth who gathered at his residence in support threatened to mar the whole programme.

Later in an interview, Mr. Banahene bemoaned why the Dangme-west DCE always targets him. According to him, during the tortuous and traumatic interrogations, he was informed that the DCE who alleged that it was he was the one masterminding the demonstration.

"How can I who have done a lot for the NPP, demonstrate against my President", Mr. Banahene intoned after sipping a glass of beer, apparently to cool down his mounting pressure.

Mr. Albert Afaglo, the NPP regional Secretary, in an interview confirmed that indeed Mr. Banahene was arrested three times for interrogation.

He, however, denied Mr. Banahene’s claim that it was the DCE who hinted the security officers of his alleged involvement in the planned demonstration.

According to Mr. Afaglo, the BNI arrested Mr. Banahene after they had intelligence reports of his involvement in the planned demonstration.

Meanwhile, President Kufuor’s late arrival at the programme marred the beauty of it all as the chiefs and other invited guests got weary before his arrival, having sat under the scorching sun for hours.

President Kufuor in his address gave the assurance that the country would be poised for rapid socio-economic development from the middle of next year.

This is because Ghana would attain the decision point of the HIPC initiative, and therefore get out of it, and borrow from international markets after the write-off of our debts.

He said the NPP Government opted for HIPC in 2001 to give the country temporary relief from the payment of her external debts so that it could use the resulting savings for poverty reduction and development.

President Kufuor disclosed that as at the end of 2002, the government had committed ?235 billion of such savings to the districts, ministries, departments and agencies