"For The Second Time Twice!"

So now we know that the anti-corruption crusading NPP MP for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa, Hon P.C. Appiah-Ofori, is a bigamist, courtesy of Yaw Boadu Ayeboafo?s ?Daily Graphic.?

The way the Daily Graphic splashed the story on its front page in its issue of Saturday, September 15, 2007, one would think that this was not just an ordinary NPP back-bencher in Parliament. One would rather think that this was Dr. Richard Anane, NPP front bench MP and Minister to boot who, as Minister of Health and Chairman of the Ghana AIDS Commission, the leading condom-wearing advocacy group in Ghana, was sent to an AIDS Conference abroad, had raw sex with an American lady, Alexandra O?Brien and bore her a son. That story was never carried by the Daily Graphic. To the Daily Graphic, the Dr. Richard Anane story was no story. But P.C Appiah-Ofori?s story is a story.

If the Ghanaian legal system were to take bigamy seriously as a crime, more than half Ghanaian men would be in jail. For bigamy indeed is a crime, punishable by imprisonment, even though neither adultery nor fornication is a crime. Our legal research has shown that throughout the history of post-independent Ghana, there has been only one successful prosecution for bigamy! In fact apart from that case, we are not aware of any other prosecution for bigamy in the country.

So why did the Daily Graphic decide to "blast" the issue of Appiah-Ofori?s alleged bigamy as if the Honourable MP had fathered twin sons with a foreign woman who is not his wife or as if he is an NPP MP who has been caught dealing in cocaine?

The answer is simple. P.C. Appiah-Ofori is from the Central Region, not the Ashanti Region. He has also become an albatross around the neck of the NPP. From inside the NPP, he has been telling the whole world how rotten the NPP is. He has accused the Party and Party members of corruption. He has accused President Kufuor of cronyism in his appointments and of appointing incompetent persons to office.

He has accused the party of unconstitutional and illegal conduct. He is the man they can?t gag.

P.C. Appiah-Ofori?s activities have gained him national and international recognition, but largely from persons and organizations that have been equally critical of the NPP Government?s performance in office. So when two weeks ago, a Ghanaian Diaspora organization joined the queue of "Appiah- Ofori praise-singers" by giving him cash and in-kind awards, it was too much for the NPP to take. They got Appiah-Ofori?s estranged wife, their media lapdog Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo, and some so-called Queenmothers to descend on Appiah-Ofori like a ton of bricks in what they hoped would be his final humiliation.

But maybe one should not weep too much for P.C. Appiah-Ofori, for he has had this coming a long time ago. We warned him more than a year ago that he was in the wrong party, and that that party would stop at noting to finish him for as long as he continued to speak the truth about the goings-on in the party.

On that occasion also, it was the same ?Daily Graphic? that was used to create the impression and to warn Appiah-Ofori that he was biting the hand that was feeding him. We warned the Hon. MP in an Open Letter which we published in our issue Vol. 12 No. 53 of Tuesday, April 11-Thursday, April 13, 2006. So appropriate is that Open Letter to the Daily Graphic?s latest smear campaign against Hon. P.C. Appiah-Ofori that we are compelled to reproduce it for the benefit of our readers. Therefore, for the "second time twice", we publish the "Open Letter to P.C. Appiah-Ofori."

Now read on?

"OPEN LETTER TO P.C.APPIAH-OFORI

DEAR Honourable P.C. Appiah-Ofori, NPP MP for Asikuma-Odohen-Brakwa, Did you see the Daily Graphic of Wednesday, April 5, 2006? Did you see the screaming, front-page banner headline, "AZAR EVADES ?11.7BN TAX", complete with a picture of the front view of the Azar Chemical industries Limited? Did you think that the real story was about Azar evading tax?

No, Sir!

Check out the story again. Read the fourth paragraph of the story, and you will see the following:

"The audit firm contracted to undertake the audit, Paulphilreb Enterprise, chaired by Mr. P.C. Appiah-Ofori, a Member of Parliament, has therefore, recommended the prosecution of the directors of the company for the fraudulent practices they have deliberately perpetrated against Ghana, resulting in heavy financial losses to the state."

Do you know what they are really telling Ghanaians? "Don?t mind that P.C. Appiah-Ofori; he thinks he is Mr. Clean, always criticising the Government. He too he is chopping some. We have been giving him Government audit contracts".

So do you know what is going to happen next? They will be publishing how they paid Paulphireb in respect of this contract. They will then follow up with a list of all other audits you may have done not just for the Revenue Agencies Governing Board, but also for the Auditor-General and other Government agencies, complete with the amounts of the fees paid to you in respect of each audit.

By the time they finish, they would have succeeded in convincing Ghanaians that "there stands your Mr. Clean, P.C. Appiah Ofori. After benefiting so much from Kufuor?s Government, what moral right has he got to criticise Kufuor?s Government?"

So watch out.

Because why have they not published the audit findings of Osei Kwabena and Associates? Of all those Ashanti accounting and audit firms to whom they parcelled out their so-called forensic audit investigations and to whom they have paid tens of billions of cedis and who have made even more startling findings?

Why pick on you, poor Fante man from Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa, to say that you have found out that somebody has chopped money? Did you realise they did not state you were an NPP MP? Did you realise they did not say you represent Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa? And did you realise they did not describe you as the "anti-corruption crusading MP"? Ask yourself why, and you will begin to realise the kind of people you are dealing with.

We are writing to you because we know who you are. We know about your previous relationship with former President Jerry John Rawlings. We know what you did at Bibiani when it was Bibiani Metal Complex, Bibiani Wood Complex, Menleo Enterprises and Bibiani Nails Factory , the latter two privately owned by Mr. L.K. Quarshie and the first two of which the Government of Ghana was majority shareholder (through the then SGMC and CMB) and minority shareholder respectively.

We know the "whistleblower" role you played that led to the near-riot, the investigations, the merger of the first two companies into the Bibiani Industrial Complex and the problems you had with Major Yaw Larsen (Rtd) when he was posted there as the first Managing Director of the new Company.

Do you remember names like Kas Brushieh, J.K. Smith, E. Arthur and Mohammed Braimah? We do. We also know about your subsequent sojourn in Nigeria and why. We are therefore writing to tell you that your background, your philosophy of life, and the principles you stand for, are the direct opposite of those of the NPP that you find yourself in. And they know it, and that is why they are preparing to "finish" you. And you yourself, that is why you always find yourself praying that certain things should not happen to or in the party. God appears not to listen to your prayers because the things you pray not to happen are the things that do happen in the NPP, which means you are in the wrong party.

The Daily Graphic story is a trap which if you do not something about will entrap you. Whether the audit you did was ordered by the Revenue Agencies Governing Board or not, ultimately it will become part of the Auditor-General?s Report. Are you not the one who has been telling the Auditor-General all the time that the Constitution requires that he submits his reports to Parliament? So how come that when you have done an audit for him, instead of Parliament, the report find its way into the media? Of course we know that you did not give the report to the Daily Graphic, you would not. So who did? Find out who did, and you will begin to find out who and who are part of the conspirators who have been issued instructions to compromise you and possibly finish you politically. Dear Honourable P.C. Appiah Ofori, watch out for you are a sheep playing with wolves. Such sheep do not survive for long".