Chronicle tracks down elusive professor

As Selormey shares one room with many in prison, partner Dr. Boadu moves to plush new Texas home.

BRYAN otherwise known as College Station is a sprawling town in Texas College Station Located on a major motor highway between Dallas, Capital of Texas and Austin, another significant city in the cowboy state of the United States.

At College Station is Texas A&M University, where an Associate Professor of the Department of Agricultural Economics, Dr. Fred Owusu Boadu, the man at the centre of a series of alleged fraudulent and dubious consultancy services that is said to have cost the nation significant financial loss.

Already, this college professor?s alleged partner in crime, former deputy minister of finance, Mr. Victor Selormey has been convicted on a crime he committed in cahoots with the stay-away professor.

He is entering the second of an eight-year prison sentence over the crooked transactions.

But as Selormey languishes in discomfort at Nsawam medium security prison, the elusive Boadu whose expected arrival in court last year forced some adjournments at the onset of the original Selormey trial, appears to be living it big time in sunny Texas.

As Ghanaians and the courts continue to probe for answers from the elusive Boadu, the court computerisation saga and other related issues currently before court, Chronicle recently managed to crack the cloak of secrecy surrounding his whereabouts and his residence plus the highly guarded phone numbers.

He has recently acquired a property ? There is no evidence linking the acquisition to proceeds from the car purchase deal and other fraudulent consultancy services that sent his man Selormey to Nsawam.

Chronicle is withholding the address, but will confirm that Boadu paid $201,000 for the house which, for the area, is one of the prissiest properties and puts him in the top of the social ladder at Bryan.

Not bad for an ordinary associate college professor who in Ghana would have been in a long queue for accommodation or make do with a rented boy?s quarters at Haatso.

The man whose formal portrait shows him with a clean-cut beard and a Presbyterian bearing did not take kindly to Chronicle?s unexpected intrusion in his house and the discovery of his private home phone numbers that are not listed in the town or the college telephone directory.

Worse still, he was deeply agitated with this reporter?s persistence at wringing answers from him over the deals that culminated in his pal Victor ending up in prison.

Dr. Boadu could not hide his shock over how Chronicle obtained his residential number, and threatened to hang up his phone when this reporter strayed into more intrusive questions bordering on the fraud and other dubious deals in which name kept popping up.

His was not the only name that the Ghanaian academic and entrepreneurial community in Dallas, Houston and Austin dropped to this reporter as the hunt for his address and telephone numbers intensified with this reporter asking for all the known associates and friends of Victor.

Most are distancing themselves now. One of the names given was Texas resident Mr. Chris Wilmot of Greater Houston Partnership, a common face in the Rawlings-Konadu train during their investment tours in the US when they were in office.

Though none of the sources could substantiate the sort of business links Selormey had with Mr. Wilmot and others in Houston Texas where Selormey had his first heart surgery done.

Mr. Wilmot was also a close pal of Chronicle publisher Kofi Coomson but was said to have fallen out with Mr. Wilmot for organising and giving an award publicly to a man who had been cited as being in the centre of the Kumepreko killings.

The award was described by former Chronicle editor and arch-critic Ebo Quansah as a ?phony? award to the MP for Ningo Prampram Hon. E. T. Mensah former Mayor of Accra and later Minister of Sports.

E.T was named at the time as one of the best mayors in the world. Mr. Wilmot has been dishing out such countless useless awards of no real value to unsuspecting people by virtue of his position and connections to the political levers in Houston.

Neither Wilmot nor any of the other associates mentioned by the Texas sources is known to have had any role in the Selormey transactions, and so the fixation on Boadu intensified.

The college professor was almost hysterical on the phone: ?How did you get my number?!!!,?.?, he inquired.

There was a long pause, and as he was not getting any useful answer from me but rather being flooded with questions, he continued ?. ?? anyway as you know, under normal circumstances I would not have spoken to you but in order to return the courtesy you deserve for calling me, I will speak to you but if you will continue to ask probing questions then you will force me to hang up,?.

When asked for his reaction about his involvement in the alleged dubious deals that were being mentioned in court, Boadu said ?as you know they are in Ghana struggling while I am here doing my job quietly?, With another Nigerian journalist listening in on the interview, this reporter made it clear that he thought Boadu owed the good people of Ghana explanation about his role in the court computerisation work and other transactions, he responded, ? I will not comment on the issue leave me alone to do my job quietly here.?

Are you saying that you are not bothered with your name being linked with corruption back home in Ghana or are you satisfied with all the accusations that you have helped fleece your motherland?

Dr. Boadu reacted by saying that he did not need to comment adding? ?if you push me around as you are doing, you will force me to bang the phone on you.?

It is now obvious that Boadu?s fortune has changed over the years following his windfall business consultancy services.

At the ongoing trial of Selormey, Boadu?s name continues to dominate, and clearly, any hope of hauling him before the courts may have been abandoned.

Boadu?s house was recently bought from a Texas couple, Mr. Runge Jeffrey S. and his spouse Michelle at the value of $124,390 with an improvement value of $77,550, which brought the cost of the building to $201, 940.

Before moving to his current place, Boadu lived at 1202 Berkeley Street College Station, also in Brazos County (District) in Texas, valued at $132,190.

Two weeks ago, on November 7, Serious Fraud Office (SFO) issued a statement freezing Boadu?s local assets and bank accounts.

The statement signed by Mr. Theophilus Cudjoe, Executive Director of the SFO in freezing the assets, indicated that Boadu had attempted to sell his house in Accra, having advertised for buyers in news papers.