The attention of the office of Groupe Nduom (GN) President, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, has been drawn to a publication attributed to Akua Donkor on the official website of Starr FM, a private radio station based in Accra.
The Starr FM story is based on an interview Akua Donkor granted the host of Kassapa FM Morning Show, Fiifi Banson. Kasapa is also an Accra-based radio station. Interestingly, both stations are owned by a single entity, Excellence In Broadcasting (EIB) Media.
The said publication does not only constitute crass lies, but is actually a wicked fabrication with the pre-meditation to malign the integrity of Dr. Nduom.
That is why this initial response is taking cognizance of the fact that the publication is based on the interview Akua Donkor granted Kasapa and carried in written by Starr FM.
Of course, for many on the other divide who wishes to hurl dirt at Dr. Nduom, Akua Donkor readily comes up as proxy candidate for carrying out that enterprise.
In her interview, and as captured by the publication on the Starr FM website, Akua Donkor said it is Dr. Nduom who prevailed on the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP,) Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and his party to institute legal action at the Supreme Court against the Electoral Commission over the conduct of the 2012 presidential election.
For the records, Dr. Nduom and the party that he led into the 2012 elections—the Progressive People’s Party (PPP)—were the first to speak against the conduct of the 2012 election.
At a press conference the PPP called immediately after the 2012 General Elections, Dr. Nduom called for serious electoral reforms, because in his estimation, that was the only way to restore confidence in the country's electoral system and commission.
That was before the NPP actually went to the Supreme Court with the petition on the presidential election.
If the PPP were interested in a court action, it would have gone to court by itself rather than advice another candidate and party to do so.
It is therefore an act of chicanery on the part of Akua Donkor – and her backers that sponsored her recent trip to the inauguration of President Buhari in Abuja, Nigeria – to suggest that it was Dr. Nduom who influenced Nana Akufo-Addo to contest the outcome of that election at the Supreme Court.
It must also be put on records that Dr. Nduom has not shown any act of cowardice in dealing with issues of conviction. Recently, he led the PPP to pray the Supreme Court to compel the government of Ghana, specifically the current administration, to implement the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) policy enshrined in the Constitution.
Although the Supreme Court did not uphold the PPP position on FCUBE, Dr. Nduom was the first to go public to, rather strongly, disagree with the learned judges.
So we wish to tell Akua Donkor and her mischievous sponsors that it has never been Dr. Nduom’s stock in trade to hide behind others to push forth any agenda on his list of convictions.
We also find it bizzare that Akua Donkor would try to divert attention from truths about the circumstances of the Ghanaian by going on a maligning trip against the late president, Professor J. E. A. Mills’ family, all in a vain attempt to get at Dr. Nduom.
Indeed, the concerns raised by Mills' family that the Mahama-led administration has failed at delivering on the promises it made to them after the demise of the former president are only a microcosm of the record of the Mahama administration’s failed promises that is today, a sad national chorus.
If Akua Donkor is worth what she is, in vain, proffering herself to be, she would be taking on those who have plunged Ghana into this needless mess, rather than applying such cheap diversionary tactic in an idle effort to establish an alibi for the mess causers.
Normally, the Nduom office would not have bothered itself over the effusions of someone of Akua Dopnkor’s ilk. We are more concerned about the radio stations—Kassapa FM and Starr FM—which, probably, inadvertently have allowed themselves to become ready conduits for Akua Donkor to publish her lies.
We do not in any way believe the personalities on these new media platforms who are behind the publications of the obvious lies are as warped in thinking as Akua Donkor; and that is why we still cannot fathom why they allowed Akua Donkor to go on that tangent without any input from the Nduom camp.
We know they are aware of the basic rules of journalism and media work, and are therefore aware of the need to give the person maligned a chance to respond – immediately on radio or before a written publication.
If the stations repeat the failure to obey that basic rule, we will assume they are in cohort with Akua Donkor or anyone maligning Dr. Nduom and respond appropriately.
Richmond Duke Keelson
Special Aide to Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom