Mallam Ali Yusif Issa, Former Sports Minister
A very livid former sports minister, Mallam Issa, has served notice he will sue the mayor of Kumasi, Kojo Bonsu, for defamation of character.
“I’m at a lost… he has just added a typical lie and there was no occasion that they called my wife in Ghana,” Issa told Starr News’ Kweku Obeng Adjei in the studios of Starr 103.5FM.
“Kojo Bonsu is a liar,” he stressed. “You were called to court to come and testify and said something different. He is a liar.”
Mallam Issa, who was embroiled in a $46,000 scandal in 2001 and had to spend about two years in jail, insisted he was set up by people around him, including Bonsu to embarrass him.
As a member of the People’s National Convention (PNC) then, he was co-opted into the erstwhile NPP administration, and was slapped with a four-year jail term in 2001 for failing to account for the $46,000 meant as winning bonus for the Black Stars, who were then on a national assignment in Sudan.
He was, however, granted a presidential pardon in July 2003 due to poor health.
Speaking on personality profile show - Starr Chat - Bonsu said: “When we asked him [Mallam Issa] he said he left the money on his wife’s table… So every minute he would change the story… at one time he told me, Cudjoe Fianoo and the late Mr. Owusu Ansah that the money is in Ghana and there was no cause for alarm.
“But unfortunately his suitcase never came and so he didn’t have any clothes and I took my credit card and I took him out and shopped for him… but the man was not telling us the truth, one minute he says it is there, another minute he says it was in his suitcase… and I found it very strange.
“I think that the money was with him...the money was with him, wherever the money went he knows it but I don’t think it was a set up or a plan, he had the money so he knows better than anybody.”
Mallam Issa, who looked quite surprised after listening to the voice of the mayor, spewed: “He never mentioned this in court that the money is with me. I will take him on and the law is there. This is defamation.”
