Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress(NDC), Peter Boamah Otokunor, has lampooned President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo over his recent comment on Chinese galamsey kingpin, Aisha Huang.
President Akufo-Addo, it will be recalled, stated in an interview earlier this week that he was uncertain about the purported ‘deportation’ status of the notorious Chinese national.
Speaking in an interview on Stone City Radio in Ho during his tour of the Volta Region, the president said: “… I am not still sure whether she was, in fact, deported or whether she fled the country the first time and has now come back or whatever. There still seems to be some uncertainty about it.
But speaking to the media on the sidelines of an NDC press conference on September 15, Otokunor described the president’s state of unawareness as one too many and of great concern.
“…I wonder how somebody who is supposed to have been deported and the president admitting that she has been deported. The senior minister, if you want the prime minister Osafo-Maafo saying that she has been deported, all of a sudden the president is playing dumb and saying that he doesn’t know that the woman has been deported.
“I think that it is becoming one too many and it is becoming a worrying trend. You have a sitting president who always says that he is not aware of decisions he himself has undertaken.
“The President has issued executive instrument and he says he is not aware. He has written letters of authority and he says he is not aware. Corruption appears under him and everybody is talking about it and he says he is not aware.
“Today, Aisha Huang, he is saying that he is not aware that Aisha Huang was deported. Very soon he will say that he is not aware he is the president of this country and I think we should be worried. We should be concerned,” Otokunor said.
His comments are similar to earlier ones made by Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr who said on the September 14 edition of Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana programme:
“There have been all kinds of interpretations to what the President said in that interview in the Volta region. There are those who are saying the president merely is talking about his own memory capacity and he is saying that he cannot remember what really happened. Whether the woman fled on her own accord or that she was deported.
“If that is the case, it is still a source of worry. You have a president who can forget such live issues and [it] actually expose his memory weakness. It is worrying in any democratic institution.
Meanwhile, Aisha Huang has been denied bail together with her three accomplices. They have been remanded in custody for two weeks.