Chief Of Staff Punched

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Parent Category: Our Country

Category: Politics

Created on Friday, 24 June 2011 00:00

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Chief Of Staff Punched

The outspoken and controversial National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for

Lower Manya in the Eastern region, Michael Teye Nyaunu, who is a known critic of his own government, has lashed out at Chief of Staff Henry Newman Martey for creating a wedge between President Atta Mills and grassroots supporters of the party.

He said this has contributed further to the increasing disenchantment within the rank and file of the party. Mr Teye Nyaunu, who accompanied Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, wife of the founder of the party on her two-day official campaign in the Eastern region as her campaign manager, said Mr Martey was not a member of the party and yet he had been appointed the Chief of Staff and therefore making it difficult for true members of the party to have access to the presidency.

He made these comments on Wednesday at the Eastern regional party headquarters when he interacted with some party people who were there to meet Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings. “I have personally tried on three occasions to see the President but Mr Martey would not let me see the President because he did not know me,” he indicated.

According to him, on the fourth occasion, he asked Mr Martey why he had been preventing him from seeing the President but Mr Martey could only say that the President had been busy and that he (Martey) did not know him (Teye Nyaunu).

“I said to him that it was not surprising that he did not know me because he is not a member of the party. He did not suffer with us in the trenches but had had the appointment on silver platter,” he said.
He explained that it was after he had put Martey in his ‘right position’ that he eventually allowed him to see the President.

“When I went to the president, I told him about my ordeal at the hands of Mr Martey and the President was very sorry over the incident.”He said the President later queried Mr Martey on that, after which he (Martey) profusely apologised to him.

According to him, the President then instructed Mr Martey to give him free access anytime he (Nyaunu) wanted to see him.He said Martey, after being queried by the President, called him to his office and gave him some souvenirs which he distributed to party people in his constituency.

He said he did not criticise just for criticism sake but because real party people who toiled to build and sustain the party had been completely neglected by the current administration.

He said the party had now seen the sense in his criticisms and was listening to the plights of its foot-soldiers.Mr Nyaunu, who boasted of being a real cadre of the party, said because he was part of the people who started the NDC, he did not fear anybody in the party, stressing that even in 1996 when the party gave the order that cadres should not contest for the party’s parliamentary primary, he contested and won.

In a related development, Michael Teye-Nyaunu has condemned President Mills for declaring himself the winner of the upcoming flagbearership contest of party.With less than 15 days to go for the flagbearership contest, President Mills, at a meeting in Kumasi with Municipal, Metropolitan and District Chiefs Executives, said he had already won the contest and urged them not to worry.

Teye-Nyaunu, in an interview with Citi News, described the President’s comment as premature and unfortunate.He reiterated his earlier claim that President Mills was being misled by those around him as well as his supporters and advised him to brace himself for a drubbing in the Sunyani contest.

“I wonder how he (Mills) could say that (he had already won). You see, this is why I say that the people around him are not telling the man the truth. He is talking based on the report that they brought to him and I pity him because nobody goes into a fight thinking he is going to lose but in this case, he has already lost and for him to come out with that statement, it is premature. Because the responses we are receiving do not tell us that he has won or it is a done deal.

“They (Mills campaign team) have done enough by influencing delegates with money and motorbikes and adopting tactics that are unfair but all these things notwithstanding, Nana Konadu is going to win and I think that it is premature for him to declare that he has won.”

Teye-Nyaunu said the response from the delegates in the Eastern region indicated President Mills would be given a serious run for his money.



Source: Thomas Fosu Jnr, Koforidua/d-guide