Armed police don’t escort me to court – Afoko

Embattled chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Paul Afoko has described media reports that he goes to court under heavy police and national security protection as “shameless and fabricated”.

Nana Yaw Osei, the spokesperson of the suspended chairman, said in a statement: “These four tabloids have specialised in shamelessly publishing outright lies, half-truths and fabricated stories about or against the person of Mr. Afoko.”

“Beyond its mischief value, this story/picture of Mr. Afoko standing with police officers should not attract the attention of these tabloids for it to be given front page prominence.

“We state in denial of the picture and story, so for The New Crusading Guide to want to portray that such a thing happened can only be wicked and unfair to the facts.

“As always, please treat such stories from these tabloids which have constituted themselves into the notorious Axis of Deceit with the contempt it deserves,” the statement said.

Below is the full unedited statement:

The office of the National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has read from the Wednesday, July 27, 2016 editions of the Daily Guide, The new Crusading Guide, The Chronicle and the New Statesman, to the effect that Mr. Paul Afoko goes to court under heavy security from the police and the National Security set up.

Accompanying such stories is a picture showing Mr. Afoko innocently interacting with some policemen.

These four tabloids have specialised in shamelessly publishing outright lies, half-truths and fabricated stories about or against the person of Mr. Afoko.

Beyond its mischief value this story/picture of Mr. Afoko standing with police officers should not attract the attention of these tabloids for it to be given front page prominence.

We state in denial of the picture and story that:

a. The caption to the picture which appeared on the front page of The New Crusading Guide is misleading to say the least as same is a wicked fabrication by the Kweku Baako Media Limited and its operatives led by the editor-in-chief, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr.

b. Mr. Afoko on July 26, 2016, never arrived in court with the Honourable Daniel Dugan, a former Deputy Minister in the erstwhile Kufuor administration. He also did not arrive with any police escort.

So for The New Crusading Guide to want to portray that such a thing happened can only be wicked and unfair to the facts.

c. Nothing in The New Crusading Guide picture shows Mr. Afoko arriving in court.

d. Very characteristic of The New Crusading Guide, the pictures they use for stories on Mr. Afoko have never spoken for themselves. The tabloid has always written captions that do not match with such pictures!

e. It is unethical journalism to deliberately mislead your readers, a fact that should be known to The New Crusading Guide, but sadly that has been the style of this tabloid.

f. The Daily Guide tabloid, on the other hand, displayed a picture on its front page that does not show any evidence of Mr. Afoko's arrival in court!

The question the few discerning readers of this tabloid would reasonably be asking after seeing the published picture would be: Where is the court Mr. Afoko is supposed to be arriving at? None is seen in the picture yet, the Daily Guide in its insatiable desire to always give bad publicity to Mr. Afoko to satisfy its owners and paymasters, jumps at anything Afoko and puts a negative twist on same to misinform its readers.

g. At paragraph 6 of the story that is supposed to accompany the published picture, a certain William Yaw Owusu writes, "He was in court in the company of senior police officers, who provided protection for him apart from the hordes of national security operatives." This is a lie! Their own published pictures expose them. Which of the policemen around was a senior police officer?

h. For the information of all none of the policemen we saw at the precincts of the court was of the rank of an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) or above. So where did the Daily Guide get this from?

i. There has never been any plain-clothed security persons around Mr. Afoko within the precincts of the court. All those who follow the national chairman after court are bona fide party members who have not been happy at happenings in the party.

j. In the last paragraph of the story, the Daily Guide states, "Since the case commenced, fully armed police officers reportedly drawn from the Monitors Unit of the Ghana Police Service have been escorting Mr. Afoko to court." This is a palpable lie!

k. The Daily Guide and its cohorts, who at best can be described as an Axis of Deceit, it appears, are on an agenda to get Mr. Paul Afoko harmed or killed otherwise why would an allegation of security presence around the national chairman be an issue for them?

l. Finally, let all such criminals who have harmed or killed persons because they disagreed with them know that the national chairman will not lower his security guard over such vile and infantile propaganda.

As always, please treat such stories from these tabloids which have constituted themselves into the notorious Axis of Deceit with the contempt it deserves.

Thank you.

Nana Yaw Osei,

Spokesperson, National Chairman, NPP.