Andrew Awuni Planted Story ...In "The Weekend Crusading Guide and "The Daily Statesman"

YOUR authoritative ‘Ghana Palaver’ is in possession of a tape recording of a meeting between Mr Andrew Awuni, Presidential Press Secretary and Ms. Grace Asibi at the former’s residence.

The tape recording, not only exposes Mr Awuni and the government as the source of the planted story in the pro-NPP newspapers, "The Crusading Guuide" and "The Daily Statesman", it also shows how the newspapers had collaborated and with the help of National Security, tried to spin the outcome of Grace Asibi’s interview on JOY FM Front Page programme that Friday.

Andrew Awuni had gotten information that Grace Asibi was likely to mention on the programme, some names including Chief Addo Kufuor, the elder son of the President, who nearly lost his life in a near gun battle with some Venezuelans the Wine Bar at the Kotoka International Airport last year.

With this piece of information, the Presidential Press Secretary invited Grace Asibi to a meeting in his office to find out, among other things, the names of top NPP members and members of government who she knew to be involved in the cocaine scandal. In all, they had five (5) meetings, two in the Castle, Osu and three at Awuni’s Cantonments residence, all at mid-night.

At one of the meetings, Grace Asibi, who was angry with the freezing of her assets, threatened she was going to reveal all the top NPP gurus and members of government involved in the cocaine scandal if her assets were not defrozen. Awuni gave her the assurance that if she should keep her mouth shut, the government will do everthing in its power to defreeze her assets and also reward her after everthing had died down.

Grace Asibi, however, mentioned the name of Chief Addo Kufuor as one of the people she knew is neck deep in the cocaine scandal.

In an attempt to pre-empting what Grace Asibi would be saying on Joy FM Front Page programme that Friday morning, Mr Awuni, through Mr. B. K. Mensah, of the National Security, planted the story of an alleged meeting at the residence of the former President so that whatever Ms. Asibi would say, would be seen by the public as what has been given to her from the meeting she had with Rawlings and the others mentioned in the story.

This was confirmed when "The Crusading Guide" in its story wrote that "our sources said Grace Asibi was coached on how to implicate or drop the names of high profile politicians and government officials as having had something to do with the drug business and her Venezuelan connections. Asibi was also to protest against the freezing of her assets by the Seriuos Fraud Office (SFO), as a violation of her rights and access to her property".

Analysis of the tape recording also revealed that the NPP Government was very worried of the Dr Richard Anane's report that was tobe released that Friday morning by CHRAJ and wanted to divert attention from the report at all cost so they had to find a story that could do the diversion.

The diversionary story must first destroy Raymond Archer, the Managing Editor of ‘The Enquirer’, whose stories on Richard Anane’s amorous affairs prompted the CHRAJ investigations.

Again, Raymond Archer had earlier made certain pronouncements, both on air and in his newspaper, to the effect that he was going to mention certain personalities involved in the cocaine saga and gone ahead to name Joseph Nwabenze, a Nigerian, who is married to the daughter of a very top NPP guru. He was also seen to be getting information from somewhere. And, could his source be Grace Asibi, through Alhaji Bature?

Secondly, Alhaji Bature of Radio Gold’s Current Affairs programme “Alhaji and Alhaji” must also be discredited as he is seen as the source of information from Ms. Asibi to Raymond Archer and the anti-NPP newspapers because of his closeness to Grace Asibi.

Third, Rojo Mettle-Nunoo’s name in the story is just a matter of course, since he has been mentioned by President Kufuor and he had testify before Georgina Wood Committee of his involvement with the Venezuelans as their consultant; he could not be left out of a meeting like that, alleged to have taken place at the Rawlings’ residence.

Again, Rojo’s name in the story is also to drag the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the former Vice-President, Prof. Atta-Mills into the cocaine story.

The long silence of the former President, Jerry John Rawlings’ was beginning to tell on the NPP and he should be made to say something and no doubt this is one story that would definitely bring out Rawlings from his closet.

Readers would recall that last Friday, September 15 editions of the both “The Weekend Crusading Guide” and “The Daily Statesman” carried on their front pages banner headline stories of a Mid-night meeting at the residence of the former President, J. J. Rawlings. In attendance were Ms. Grace Asibi, Rojo Mettle Nunoo and Alhaji Bature.

“The Weekend Crusading Guide” had the pictures of President Rawlings with Grace Asibi on the front page with the headline “JJ & COCAINE BARON’S ‘WIFE’ IN MID-NITE ‘DANCE’ …Rojo Out Of Coverage Area But Bature Declines Comment! While “The Daily Statesman” had the pictures of Raymond Archer, Grace Asibi and Alhaji Bature on the front page with the headline “WHY RAWLINGS MET GRACE ASIBI, ROJO, BATURE AND ARCHER.

Both newspapers spoke of events leading to the freezing of the assets of certain personalities, including Rojo and Asibi, who had appeared before the Georgina Woode Committee. The stories also spoke of how Grace Asibi was given counsel on how to deal with the freezing of her assets and bank accounts. All the personalities mentioned in the story, with exception of President Rawlings, came out that Friday morning to deny ever having any meeting at the residence of the former President.

It became obvious the two newspapers had goofed as Radio station after Radio station aired the denials of those mentioned in the story.

“The Saturday Statesman” hurriedly came out the following day with a retraction story on its front page with the same pictures it had used in the previous edition with the headline “Alleged meeting at JJ’s Ridge residence: ROJO, ARCHER & CO DENY STORY”.

Surprisingly, the Managing Editor of the newspaper played a smart one by the tagging his apology inside the paper away from the eyes of his weekend readers while still maintaining “our sources, who we have no reason to doubt, insist the meeting did take place last Friday”.

“The Weekend Crusading Guide”, as at the time of going to bed, has not retracted the story but its Managing Editor, Mr. Kweku Baako had assured Ghanaians on Metro TV he stands by the story and that when resumes duty, he was going to expose all that took place at the said meeting at the Rawlings residence.

"Ghana Palaver" investigations have revealed that the National Security having realised that their dealing with with Asibi and the planted story was going to be exposed, last Monday, quickly used Richard 'Agbeko' Mensah to claim authorship of the planted story to divert attention from Andrew Awuni, the National Security and the NPP government.

He was deliberately sent to an NDC Member of Parliament, who knew Richard very well well due to his association with the NDC sometime ago and yet he pretend he didn't know the NDC MP.

Raymond Archer of the Enquirer was made to believe that Richard was the sourec of the planted story.

When the alleged meeting at the Rawlings residence was published by "The Daily Statesman" and The Weekend Crusading Guide", it was widely reviewed on almost all the Radio and Television stations yet when The Enquirer exposed the alleged source of the story, only Radio Gold and Metro TV reviewed the story.

It will also be recalled that, that same Monday, September 18, "The Daily Guide" published on its back page a story which said "SFO RELAXES ORDER". The story was actually in response to the assurance given Grace Asibi by Andrew Awuni to make sure she is given access to her assets and bank accounts. It said,"But in what appear to be a volte-face after some of the affected people had threatened to take anti-corruptions body to court, SFO said the affected people could have access to their accounts and properties only if the SFO received a prior notification. Grace Asibi and Rojo had been the most vociferous among those affected by the frozen assets orders".