ATTEMPTS TO redirect the focus of the scandalous wife-snatching affair of the 62 years old Romeo Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry, Mr. Thomas Broni, onto alleged marital problems of Mr. Tony Osei-Tutu and his estranged wife Ms Martha Nkrumah hit the rock Wednesday, when murky details of the relationship between the Minister and his mistress instead emerged on radio to the disquiet of some government officials in Accra. By the time hot exchanges on the issue were finished with Wednesday morning, serious allegations, including one on abortion of a pregnancy between Broni and his new mistress, had all been made on Peace FM.

“Have you and Broni also not performed an abortion recently” Osei-Tutu, the estranged husband of Martha Nkrumah asked in response to another allegation by the Minister’s mistress that she had a problem with him because he requested for an abortion of a child after their trip to Germany, where Osei-Tutu was educated.

So worrying were some of the allegations that some party functionaries called this reporter after the programme to cease fire on the issues. It was too late. This reporter explained that once Broni had broken an agreement reached between him and this paper following the intervention of a highly respected media giant and friend of the Minister and our Editor, he had left no room for compromises. The agreement had been that the paper should cease publication on the issues while the Romeo Minister sought out ways of resolving the crisis, which was threatening his political career.

Fortunately for the 62-year-old Deputy Minister as well, his mistress of 18 years in Edmonton, North London, Ms. Dinah Opoku, who returned to Accra to live with him last December, had left for London about a week earlier, cutting short her family’s preparation for a showdown with the minister whom they felt had not treated her well.

What had angered the family, relatives say, was that the Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry’s new mistress, Ms. Martha Nkrumah, had been unknowingly rubbing it in on their daughter with her question on “who stays with a man who performs “kokooko” for 17-years?

Though that was Martha’s explanation for her steamy affair with the deputy Minister, who set her up through a credit facility at the GNPA, Dinah Opoku’s family felt that it was an insult to their daughter who had lived with Broni for 18-years without a “kokooko”. The family had been trying to get in touch with Broni first wife, whom he has children with and who is currently believed to domiciled in Kumasi before going to town.

Interestingly, though Concord sources had put the credit line at ?500 million, officials of the GNPA later revealed that Martha had accessed ?75 million of that facility to-date. Though Martha raised a query on the published value of the credit facility, she was unwilling to come up with the actual amount of credit available to her and what she had accessed until this reporter explained that she had actually accessed ?75 million of the amount at the time of our publication. But the 36-year old mistress of Thomas Broni shot back to say that it was normal for people to arrange business deals for others; to which this reporter, who was on the programme with her and the husband, responded by saying that it could not have been right for the taxpayer’s money to be used by a Minister of State to finance his girlfriend in that manner. Apart from using state resource to sponsor his mistress, another problem was that the credit facility was abnormal. It allowed Ms. Nkrumah to credit goods from the GNPA without any real collateral or guarantee. The credit facility was largely based on the goodwill of the words of Minister Broni, whose stay in ministerial office could be curtailed any day on the say-so of President John Agyekum Kufuor.

Incidentally, when the issue of Broni, having lived with Ms Opoku for 18-years without even a “kokooko” was brought up last Wednesday, Martha quickly said that was not an issue of concern to her. This was despite her claims that it was the basis for her having left her husband.

Neither was her false claims that Osei Tutu met her after she had completed Sixth Form at the Mfantseman Secondary School, which the Daily Guide had hang their story on to portray her as a young innocent victim of her husband - “a sex slave” - important to her.

When the husband destroyed her false claims in the Guide that she met him after Sixth Form and explained that she was instead in Form 3 when they met and that he single-handedly financed her education throughout her life without any contribution from the father, Martha shifted the story again. “That is not the issue,” she said, though that was the issue her interview in the Guide focused on. Strangely, Martha who alleged on Radio Gold weeks earlier that she left the husband’s home because “he was dealing in drugs” also contradicted herself. She was reported by the Guide to have said that she was not aware of what job her husband does for a living when asked this time. She would not explain herself when the issue was raised on Peace FM Wednesday.

Speaking to Joy FM in the first live studio interview he gave weeks back, the estranged husband, Tony Osei-Tutu questioned whether it was not criminal and an act of irresponsibility that Broni and his estranged wife were only now telling the public of the kind of drug dealing criminal he was, without having caused his arrest in previous times.

He denied being a drug dealer and said his estranged wife’s allegations were desperate acts to excuse her relationship with the minister. Next week: We’d pick up the principles and issues that went into our decision to do this story of indiscipline, abuse of office etc., Book your copy at a vendor near you.