By Margaret Jackson

My mum told me a story about this mad middle-aged man called Kwame Appiah. This man I was told used to love nothing more than the newspapers, therefore, he had the tendency of just stocking his pockets with a bunch of newspapers when he got mad and wandered around the village. In fact the huge stuck of newspapers in his pockets became Kwame Appiah’s trademark, which compelled adults and little kids to make fun of him. But wait a minute; Kwame Appiah took his love for the newspapers to another side-line. I was told that he became so obsessed with newspapers that overtime, he ventured into the homes of people whenever they were not around looking for newspapers to steal.

When I tried to find out from my mum why Kwame Appiah did what he did, she told me a little history about the man. According to my mother, Kwame Appiah was one of the few educated individuals in the village at the time that eventually had a gainful employment in one of the ministries in Accra. Kwame Appiah’s move to the city I was told was a dream come true, as he never thought good tidings would come his way.

My mum said Appiah daily bought and read the newspapers so he had tons of information which he released to the village folks by piece-meal during his month-end visits. My mum further told me that Appiah eventually began to behave that if he had not told you something, then it has either not happened or it is not true if you heard it somewhere. He elected himself as the official mouthpiece of any good or bad news prevailing in the country and around the globe at the time.

I therefore told my mum that probably that is why Appiah stuck his pockets with newspapers even after he had gone mad to still demonstrate to the village colleagues that he is still their unchallenged official source of information, even though he could no longer share any credible thing with them let alone even talk.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have someone in our country today who I believe behaves just like Kwame Appiah. He is known to have stocked his pockets with old newspapers dating back to the 50s and believes he is the official source of information to every living Ghanaian. This man thinks that if the information is not from him, you got not to believe it because he is the only known, recognized, unchallenged, ultimate document holder that the country has ever produced.

Kweku Baako, the so-called Editor-in-Chief (Big Title) of the New Crusading Guide, believes he is the monarch of all that he surveys in Ghana. This discredited guy whose dishonesty and shameless lies backed by stomach political analysis, largely contributed towards the humiliating loss of power by the NPP in the 2008 elections, and who changed the name of his discredited newspaper from Crusading Guide to the New Crusading Guide when President Mills assumed office in 2009, has taken so many people in Ghana for granted and for far too long, thinking nobody would ever hold him to account.

Kweku Baako erroneously believes that Ghanaians are so gullible and would therefore take any nonsense and trash from him to the bank without cross-checking it. That is why he always had the tendency of spewing out garbage to confuse Ghanaians anytime fire begins to burn closely towards the corridors of his paid masters, the NPP.

It would be recalled that the Daily Graphic published in its Monday edition of February 13, 2012, a story about the notorious Ghanaian drug baron, Raymond Kwame Amankwah, who is serving a 14-year prison term at the Provisional Detention Centre at Caucaia in Brazil for drug trafficking. The story has it that the Federal Police Department of Brazil has established that Raymond Kwame Amankwah, a relative of NPP Flagbearer, Nana Dankwa Akufo-Addo, was holding a Ghanaian diplomatic passport at the time of his arrest.

To further buttress the story, the Daily Graphic report quoted the diplomatic passport number of Amankwah as D1878450. The story which came at the heels of the arrest and detention of Asem Darkey, the mastermind behind the missing 77 parcels of cocaine with a street value of $438.9 million, has not gone down well for the NPP folks who have realized that the mystery surrounding their aiding and abetment to cocaine deals which has dented the image of the country to the International Community is beginning to unravel.

Fast forward. Kweku Baako enters the arena with a stuck of old newspapers in his pockets just like Kwame Appiah and informs the whole world that the Daily Graphic story had already been published in May 2008 so it was no news at all, but just a reproduction or recycling of the old stuff. But Kweku Baako made a terrible mistake this time round. He fouled up big time. But this mistake did not catch the attention of many Ghanaians because this rented journalist, who calls himself Editor-in-Chief, has been dancing around words to bamboozle Ghanaians for far too long.

Kweku Baako stated in his report that there were some similarities and mistakes in the Daily Graphic stories about Raymond Amankwah’s arrest in 2008 and 2012. He then went on to point out that in the 2008 story it was stated that Amankwah was travelling on an ordinary passport number H1878450, so why is it that the 2012 story is stating that he had a diplomatic passport numbered D1878450? This should not take any credible person one second to blink and put Kweku Baako to where he belongs.

My little brother will tell you right there that, “Wait a minute, the passport number quoted in 2008 was meant to cover the back and save Akufo-Addo, the then presidential candidate of the NPP, which is why the alphabet in front of the passport number was changed from D to H in 2008.” Did you not see that apart from the two alphabets D & H, the two passport numbers are the same? Bingo, problem solved! Why would you think that the then NPP ruling government will sit down and do nothing for it to come out that the arrested relative of its presidential candidate was holding a Ghanaian Diplomatic Passport at the time of his arrest? And come to think of it again that the diplomatic passport was issued to Amankwah by Akufo-Addo, who was then the Foreign Minister, to aid Amankwah in his drug deals. This would have been the major campaign ammunition for the NDC that would have aided them till Election Day in 2008.

Therefore, if the Daily Graphic under Ransford Tetteh’s editorship did NPP’s dirty job in 2008 to alter the passport number of jailed Raymond Amankwah to aid Akufo-Addo’s campaign, but has redeemed its dented image under the same Ransford Tetteh to get it right this time, Kweku Baako should never attempt to do the unthinkable of throwing Ghanaians off the gear. The Daily Graphic got it right this time! And Kweku Baako has seriously exposed what the NPP did in 2008 when Raymond Amankwah was arrested. They simply altered Amankwah’s passport number to shield Akufo-Addo from public outcry and scrutiny. Period!

Ghanaians will one day never forget so-called journalists like Kweku Baako who because of the comfort he enjoys by being paid by the NPP, continues to smite the face of the people of Ghana by using blatant lies to deceive the public. It is very pathetic and double standard talk to hear pitiable Kweku Baako saying that he “smells kindergarten enthusiasm" driving government communication and NDC party propaganda following remarks made by leading members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) regarding the arrest of Sheriff Asem Darkey in the infamous MV Benjamin Missing Cocaine saga.

Kweku Baako went on to say that it is very pathetic how the government’s communication team has turned the arrest of Darkey, a totally nationalistic issue, into a propaganda piece. Propaganda Indeed! What has Kweku Baako been saying and doing since the Woyome issue broke out? Is the Woyome issue a Crusading Guide issue or also nationalistic? And if Kweku Baako thinks the missing cocaine issue should be treated as a nationalistic issue, why does he think the Woyome issue does not deserve the same kind of treatment from him and his paid masters, the NPP?

I urge the Daily Graphic to fight back and redeem its dented image. I blame the Daily Graphic for turning the newspaper into a small gallery of the NPP. As a result, any news published in the Daily Graphic these days and seen to be hitting or exposing any misdeeds by the NPP is dismissed by the NPP and its paid hatchet men. I wish the paper as a matter of redeem its sinking image from the likes of Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, Kobby Asmah, Kofi Akordor and others. Next time they will not find people like me defending them.

http://majjacks80.blogspot.com magjackson80@yahoo.com