The characterisation of persons in government fronting the Agyapa Gold Royalties deal as “Akyem sakawa boys” has trigged a fierce reaction by the Deputy Minister of Information, Pius Enam Hadidze.

Speaking in an interview on Okay FM with Kwame Nkrumah Tikese on Monday, September 7, 2020, monitored by GhanaWeb, the Deputy Minister of Information labeled former President Mahama as the real sakawa person.

“I hold the view that if we are to look for the real 419 person in this country, it should be the person who went to a Burkina Faso contractor and took a bribe to allow him to work in the country. It is not Akufo-Addo who did that, it is Mr. John Mahama who did that.

If we are looking for someone who is 419 and is perpetrating sakawa it is the person whose brother living abroad has been declared wanted by Interpol and is being sought by the Special Prosecutor to answer questions on how he was used as a conduit for paying bribes to his brother otherwise known as government official 1 to further corruption and steal state funds when the country was going to buy from Airbus.

Such a person in my view is the real sakawa. It is not Nana Akufo-Addo’s brother who has been declared wanted by Interpol, it is John Mahama’s brother. So if you ask me who the real sakawa is, I will mention John Mahama,” he stated.

In their defense on why they refer to Members of the Akufo-Addo government leading the Agyapa deal as "Akyem Sakawa Boys", former President Mahama and some NDC members have said the tag as being used, is meant to classify only the group of Akyem people associated with the deal and not the entire Akyem ethnic group.

However, according to Mr. Hadzide, the former President is more guilty of using his position to loot the state and deserves the sakawa tag more than anyone else.

“It is not Nana Akufo-Addo who signed 70% of Ghana’s bauxite to his brother only for the Supreme Court to cancel the deal, it is Mr. John Mahama. So if you are looking for a sakawa person you should say it’s John Mahama.”

The Minister averred that despite Mr. Mahama being liable to be described as a Sakawa person based on his fraudulent exploits as president, he cannot refer to the people of Bole where the former president comes from as Sakawa people and therefore, condemned the former president’s endorsement of the tag.

“I have my personal subjective views that if Mr. Mahama endorses what Adongo wrote on his Facebook and is interested in finding out who the real sakawa or 419 person in the country is, he should go and stand in front of a mirror, whomever he sees in the mirror is the sakawa and not Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo. However, that cannot be the basis to refer to a whole tribe as sakawa and 419,’ Mr. Hadzide stressed.