General News of Tuesday, 18 January 2011

Source: DAYBREAK

My Home Is For Outdooring - Minister

“My house has been turned into a place where out-doorings are done, you can attest to it when you visit my home early in the morning”, Nii Nortey Dua, Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports said in an interview with this paper last Saturday, 15 January 2011.

The Deputy Minister who also doubles as a Member of Parliament for Ledzokuku (Teshie) in Accra was just last year in the news with his “Rent A Place & Pretend You Went To South Africa” during the world cup in July and “Am A Musician” also in December during the commissioning of the LEKMA Hospital.

This newspaper had sought to find out from him (Nii Nortey Dua) whether reports reaching it that about a fortnight ago, a group of young men from his constituency threatened to burn down his home when his wife prevented them from seeing him saying he was asleep.

Though he denied it saying it was a concocted story, he said people visit his house on daily basis as if an out-dooring ceremony is being held in his house and that our reporter can come and ‘see things for himself’.

Despite his arrogance, our sources say a group of young men from the Teshie Township (popularly called Maami) visited the Deputy Minster who they energetically campaigned for but the Deputy Minister’s wife told them he was asleep.

The young men who according to our sources claimed they have been prevented from seeing the man they walked morning, day and night with during the 2008 general elections by his wife then threatened to destroy by fire the house of the Deputy Minister.

We gather that it took the efforts of some men hovering around the compound house of the Deputy Minister to calm tempers of the irate young men before they left the residence.

“The boys are not the only ones who have gone through such treatment, he opened his mouth and told a family relation that we (constituents) are ungrateful thus him not helping us to secure jobs because we won’t say thank you to him, he promised us jobs so how does thank you come in here when I did my part for him in 2008.”, a victim said.

Another victim whose uncle happens to be a friend of the Deputy Minister said “when we went to him with my problem of getting into the Ghana Armed Forces, he asked me to get him the number of the one in charge of recruitment….because I wanted to join, I had friends who gave me the number and gave it to him. He surprised me again by asking me to go and show him the residence of the man, is it not strange? How can I know his residence, I could see he was not ready to help so I opted out”.

It was this same Deputy Minister who told stranded soccer fans who were still nursing the ambitions of traveling to South Africa to watch the biggest soccer fiesta (World Cup) to rent accommodation in Accra and pretend they went to South Africa.

“Some people are saying that they have bid farewell to their family relations and their friends that they are going to South Africa. So if they go back they will feel very ashamed that they are not able to go.

“Such people should go and hire proper place of accommodation and stay so that after the tournament they can go back and give the impression that they were in South Africa,” the Deputy Sports Minister told Elvis Adjetey of Joy FM

With President Mills promising an Action Year, the youth and the many people who visit the home of the Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports and MP for Ledzokuku for various forms are hopeful they get jobs and the needed help though they doubt his commitment.