‘You met the wrong person!’ – Ghanaian lady at centre of online feud with NYC Ghana Embassy rebuts

Yaa Tabby (Evelyn Duncan), the Ghanaian lady at the centre of the online fracas that has taken over social media conversations in Ghana and across the world, regarding what she said was the unprofessionalism of the Ghana Consulate, New York, has come back with a daring tweet to the consulate.

This was after the Ghana Consulate, represented by Frederick Ameyaw, Head of Information, issued a detailed two-page statement to respond and ‘correct’ some aspects of reports from Yaa Tabby’s accounts of the bad experience she said she received at their offices in the past week.

In the series of tweets from the young Ghanaian lady in the United States, she said she had gone to the consulate to receive a passport and visa on behalf of her brother-in-law but she realised that she was being unnecessarily delayed.

She also described how she was made to go through other lengthier processes, unlike a few other people who had come to meet her there, but were served ahead of her.

“Upon arriving, I wrote down his name and number and was asked to take a seat, which I did. A lady came out and started calling out names for the visas. Three gentlemen were there to pick up other people (one for his daughter and the other two for a group). She called out the names and asked who she was missing, so I politely told her my brother-in-law's name again. She asked if I had written his name down, and I said yes. She told me to wait for the next batch of names, and I obliged.

“As I sat down again to wait for my turn, a young lady came in and asked if they had mentioned her mum's name because she had missed it, and she was asked to wait for the next round of names like I was told to. Five minutes later, a guy with dreadlocks came in and spoke… to the young lady waiting (they seemed to know each other well). This guy proceeded to go into the office that read STAFF ONLY (DO NOT ENTER UNLESS AUTHORIZED), so I assumed he worked there when he entered. No wahala! He came out and spoke to the same young lady again and went back in the second time. This time, he returned with a passport in his hands and handed it to the girl, and she said, "Oh, thank you, anka mɛtena ha akyɛ." Sis got up and left. A guy who also came to meet me was...

"... called outside by this guy, and the passports he was there to pick up were handed to him as well. So, the thing gingers me, and I got up and asked why that guy was handing out passports and visas because he wasn't responsible for that,” she tweeted.

In the response of the Ghana Consulate, New York, they explained, in summary, that what she saw and thought was preferential treatment given to people who came to meet her there, was not so.

Frederick Ameyaw indicated that those people were “none other than officials of recognized travel and tour agencies in the U.S. that submit visa applications on behalf of visa applicants.”

The statement also said Yaa Tabby “had no authority note from the applicant to pick the passport.”

But in a sharp, challenging rebuttal to the statement from the Ghana Consulate, the young lady, Yaa Tabby, who has also been identified to have been a central member of the OccupyJubileeHouse protest in New York, described the contents of the statement as lies.

Unhappy that the consulate would want to portray her as the liar in this matter, she shared another set of series of tweets, answering all the claims made in the statement.

For instance, on the claim by the consulate that she signed in with her name instead of that of her brother-in-law, this was her response:

“This second part makes me so angry and sick because how can you say I signed in my name instead of his? I was the first person on the sign sheet when I got in at approximately 2:09 pm that day. I specifically asked the man with the big belly at the reception desk whose name should be signed in because I wasn't there for my passport, but instead my brother-in-law's, and he said, ‘Write down his name and phone number.’ So please, with all due respect, I, Evelyn Duncan d, double dare you to show all Ghanaians the sign-in sheet for that day and blur out the rest of the names (privacy's sake) to prove me wrong. I will show Ghanaians my handwriting (my brother-in-law's name and his number),” she tweeted.

Read her full responses below:

Ghana Consulate of New York, since you want to lie about what happened exactly that day, here you go! Instead of you to right your wrongs, you want to lie on my name? Nah, you met the wrong person! I will stand on my truth and nothing else.

My reply to the facts of the matter:

(i) First, my brother-in-law came in for two passports, his and my sister's. Y'all asked him for a self-addressed stamped envelope for only one passport, his wife's and not his. Someone from your office called him and said his passport would be ready for pick up, or he could send a self-addressed stamp in. Oh, and when that person called, she was vulgar to him, not allowing him to even talk, and was having a whole-ass conversation with someone else on the side without even having the courtesy to put him on hold

(ii) This second part makes me so angry and sick because how can you say I signed in my name instead of his? I was the first person on the sign sheet when I got in at approximately 2:09 pm that day. I specifically asked the man with the big belly at the reception desk whose name should be signed in because I wasn't there for my passport, but instead my brother-in-law's, and he said, "Write down his name and phone number."

So please, with all due respect, I, Evelyn Duncan d, double dare you to show all Ghanaians the sign-in sheet for that day and blur out the rest of the names (privacy's sake) to prove me wrong. I will show Ghanaians my handwriting (my brother-in-law's name and his number).

Again, I was the first person to sign in on that second sheet because, as I said in my previous threads, my brother-in-law's name wasn’t mentioned in the first list. Also, if I didn't sign in his name, why did a staff member bring out his passport, not mine, since I signed in my name? Secondly, that wasn't the issue, as you know it. The problem was/is that "goro boy" with deadlocks who I saw going in and out of the office that only authorized persons were allowed in and handling passports to two people that came to meet me there. The issue was/is how one of your staff said the "goro boy" doesn't work at the consulate when I confronted him with my complaints.

The problem was that I never wrote my name instead of Bernard Annor. When I expressed how I felt, that was when you asked who I was there to pick up for because y’all hadn't even gone out of the reception to check the sign-in sheet. For the 2nd time, I dare you to prove me wrong.

(iii) I had no problem with showing a letter of authorization. When y'all called my brother-in-law about his passport, and he chose to send someone to pick it up since he's from another state, none of you communicated that to him.

None of you told him he needed to write and sign an authorization letter. Even when I got to the office, I asked the man at the reception, and he said all I needed to do was to sign in the name of the person I was picking up. So I ask, do your staff receive different trainings?

They all say different things, and they seem lost. Or do they treat other people differently from others? I added this: I didn't see the young lady who came to pick up her mum's passport and show the goro boy a signed authorization letter.

(iv) I will add my evidence for this section because it's my word against yours. This will show Ghanaians how a whole Consulate would lie to prove they were actually "doing their job."

When the chubby lady finally called Bernard's name, and I got up and walked to the window, she looked at me. She said, "Where's your authorization letter, "and I replied that they had not communicated that to my brother-in-law when they called him. I asked the man at the reception, and he also didn't say anything, but I had my ID with me, and she said no, they need both letter and my ID. I didn't go back and forth with her; I just laughed because, at that point, I knew they just wanted to frustrate me for initially complaining about what I saw. So I proceeded to ask her where my brother-in-law should send this letter, and she pointed to the email at the window (ghanaconsulate@aol.com), which I took a quick picture of (time stamped 2:48) and sent to my sister.



My brother-in-law sent the letter to that email at 2:53 pm (I will attach a screenshot). That email wasn't sent to me; it was sent to the email y'all provided to me, so again, you are lying! Because if I wasn't a recipient of that email, I couldn't have shown it to you.



My brother-in-law informed me that he had sent the email to the email address you provided. So I walked up the second time to the window, and that was when I saw that short, dark lady whom I told that the email was sent so they could check.

She said that the embassy didn't have printers and I should go out and print it and have it notarized. That was when I questioned her. If you wanted me to have a physical printout, then why did your colleague ask Bernard Annor to send that authorization letter to the Consulate's email? Again, this proves my point that you guys wanted to frustrate me. She proceeded to say “ watɔ printer wɔha sɛ yɛmfa printi papers ɛmma wo, sɛ wokaasɛ wonkoara na wonim mmara” In your press release, you said that an officer finally printed out a copy of the authorization note, right? If you guys don't have printers, then how did he miraculously print it out? Moyɛ magic anaa? Also, please let me know how you got an electronic copy of the authorization letter if I showed it from my phone. Because you claimed I showed an electronic copy, I was advised to print it out. This proves my point that the letter was sent to the Consulate's official email, and there are printers in the office.

However, because I complained about what I experienced, you frustrated me and treated me disrespectfully. A copy of the authorization letter you mentioned was printed out. Did Bernard Annor even sign it? Was it even notarized? But yet you gave me his passport.

So I ask, are you following protocols and doing your job? If the Consulate is requested to provide authorization letters for people who picked up passports on behalf of other people on that day between 2 and 3 PM that day, could they? I bet not! Instead of y'all to take accountability for what happened that day and find competent people to work for the ministry, you released a press statement lying and trying to make me look bad. I will never be oppressed! You will never shut me up!

So again, I dare the Consulate to show me proof of the sign-in sheet where I wrote my name instead and not Bernard Annor and let me be crucified!!! I, Evelyn Duncan, will wait.

It’s nice to see y’all sat down to write this magnificent lie called a “Press Release”

And to you, Fredrick Ameyaw, tell Rudegyal Mimi that it went all the way “somewhere” since she was so confident this won’t go anywhere. Tell her it’s me, the blonde ass b*tch they mishandled.

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AE