Kofi Agyepong
9 August 2008
Ghana's Ambassador to Serbia, Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe, has said Lepowura Alhaji M N D Jawula is not a member of the New Patriotic Party which disqualifies him from making any claim to the running mate slot. In a telephone call to the ADM on Wednesday, Dr. Tamakloe expressed displeasure with ADM's stories on Jawula and said, "I can see your support for Jawula, but he is not a member of the New Patriotic Party and not a politician...You shouldn't take things for granted...It's a different thing sitting behind the desk and different thing being on the soap box."
Dr. Tamakloe and Alhaji Jawula have both held the highest position in Ghana Football at one time or the other.
Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe, who has never hidden his support for Alhaji Abubakar Boniface, said the party would be looking defeat in the eyes if Boniface is not selected to run with Nana Akufo-Addo "I hope he chooses him or then he is looking for defeat," he emphasized.
Refusing to answer more questions, he said, "I have spoken extensively to a radio station, so go and collect the tape and listen."
In an earlier interview with the ADM, the Ambassador to Serbia said, "Alhaji Boniface stands tall. He is a northerner, practicing Muslim and has been tried and tested as a cabinet minister and also is an astute politician. Any where he has manned, he has worked progressively.
Saddick's organizational powers, his popularity with both the youth and the elderly cut across board. He is very progressive and a trouble shooter. Saddick is a reconciliator, it is on record that, as a regional minister of the north, he reached out to both the Abudus and the Andanis.
Indeed, he is the only person who was able to bring the Abudus and Andanis together when he was a regional minister. The party would win hands down if he is picked by Nana Akufo-Addo."
Reacting to Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe's statement, the spokesperson for Alhaji Jawula, Mr. Awal Mohammed, said "we are treating the attack with the contempt that it deserves."
He described Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe's "attack as petty jealousness emanating from as an unsuccessful former GFA Chairman trying to pull down an innocent hard working former colleague." "In any case", Mr. Awal said, "as far as we are concerned, Nyaho's inputs are inconsequential in the important exercise of selecting a running mate for the NPP."
He said Dr. Tamakloe does not compile a register of NPP members for him to question someone's membership."It's a serious indictment of his own standing in the party," he said.
"Nyaho does not command the kind of influence he claims in the party's scheme of affairs," he said.
On whether Ahaji Jawula is not an NPP member or not, Mr. Awal said, "the person that he, Nyaho, is supporting, when did that person join the party if that is a yardstick of measuring who and who a suitable running mate should be...His claim that Alhaji Jawula is not a politician is again an indictment of his knowledge of NPP.
At the time of filing this report yesterday afternoon, the question of who would eventually run with Nana Akufo-Add was still very much up in the air. A source told ADM that in spite of the clear signs that "Alima and Boniface would not fly, they are still lobbying hard."
And indeed, so are some well connected individuals to the presidential candidate also lobbying hard for a Diaspora dark horse, Dr. M.S. Abudulai.
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