Nana Akomea Stokes Fire At GIJ

Information available to The Enquirer indicates that a secret war is looming at the Ghana Institute of Journalism among the lecturers and administrators of the institute over a ‘fake’ certificate produced by Nana Akomea, the campaign communication director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), on behalf of Ahmed Arthur, a parliamentary aspirant of the party.

Nana Akomea, in his bid to support Ahmed Arthur during the party’s parliamentary primaries, secured a certificate from the GIJ in the name of Arthur, who himself had confessed to the leadership of the party that though he did short courses at the GIJ, the school does not award certificates.

The certificate, which Akomea got, through his bosom friend (name withheld) at the institute, has set tongues wagging not only among the leadership of the NPP, but also lecturers of the GIJ.

This paper has gathered exclusively that the ‘fake certificate’ is now being debated upon by the leadership of the party.

According to our reports, after the certificate, which was given to the leadership of the party by Nana Akomea, on behalf of his protégé, Ahmed Arthur, lecturers are arming themselves with moves to haul the Rector of het School, Mr. David Newton, who is widely known to be a true friend of the NPP guru, and his Deputy Registrar to explain the circumstances leading to the contradictory positions by the two school authorities.

In a letter written by Mrs. Patience Sowa, the Deputy Registrar, dismissing he allegations that Ahmed Arthur had done short courses from the institute, another letter purportedly signed by the Rector contradicted the Registrar’s.

This paper has gathered that while the Deputy Registrar, Mrs. Patience Sowah, has stated categorically that the GIJ has no records on the educational status of Ahmed Arthur, the Rector is also claiming that he has documents which indicated that Ahmed Arthur did a course at the school.

Interestingly, the Rector, who is a bosom friend of Nana Akomea, the NPP’s former Minister of Communication and member of Parliament for Okaikoi South, is believed to have aided Nana Akomea to secure the certificate with the name ‘Hon. Ahmed Arthur” and submitted it to the NPP leadership on behalf of the candidate at a meeting.

Meanwhile, our information is that the candidate himself has admitted to the party that he has no certificates and that for the short courses run by the GIJ, certificates were not given.

As if that was not enough, Ahmed Arthur told the party’s Vetting Committee that his certificates had been taken away by flood, rendering him ‘certificate less’ like Mr. Jack Obetsebi-Lamptey, the NPP national chairman, and Sheikh I. C. Quaye, former Greater Accra Regional Minister.

In a letter dated, May 23, this year, signed by Mrs. Patience Sowah, in response to verification of educational status of Ahmed Arthur by Ms. Vivian Addae, the Okaikoi South Constituency chairperson of the NPP, reads, “Your letter dated May, 5, 2011 on the above subjects refers: I regret to inform you that we do not have any records on Mr. Ahmed Arthur. In fact, we do not have any profile of him in our records on participants of our short courses in the past ten years.”

Days after the Registrar had exposed the lies of the NPP member, Nana Akomea was able to secure the certificate under mysterious circumstances which is setting tongues wagging at the GIJ on why and how he got the certificate.