By William
Yaw Owusu
Saturday
March 24, 2018
Former President John Dramani Mahama has thrown a
challenge to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to arrest and prosecute him,
if indeed he (Mahama) amassed wealth and acquired property during his tenure as
president.
A fired-up Mr Mahama said the government could go
ahead to take over his alleged hotel in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, if
indeed, he owns such a facility.
The former president also said that he had been
accused of owning ships in Tokyo, Japan and wondered what the New Patriotic
Party (NPP) government was waiting for before taking action against him.
The former president is said to have acquired
several properties, especially in Dubai, as well as in Ghana, where cronies
were said to have been used to acquire those properties.
One of such properties the former president has been
linked to is the Homes Chain gated estate where he was residing lately.
Pressure
Addressing opposition National Democratic Congress
(NDC) activists in London, United Kingdom, Mr. Mahama put pressure on the NPP
government to prove that he is corrupt, adding that all the allegations against
him were baseless.
He also boasted that he ran an incorruptible
government.
The ex-president asserted that the NPP government is
in the business of manufacturing all kinds of allegations against him and the
people who served under him.
Already, some of his appointees have been caught in
the corruption web and facing prosecution in court.
Mr Mahama had advised NDC supporters to storm the court
in solidarity with the accused appointees.
NDC’s
Track Record
“Go ahead and prosecute, we’ve told them. If I have
done wrong prosecute me. They talk about hotels in Dubai, seize them, you’re in
office. They talk about ships in Tokyo, go and take over them; I mean they talk
about all kinds of lies and they kept on repeating them and people thought such
things exist.”
Initial
Challenge
This is not the first time Mr Mahama is throwing a
challenge to President Akufo-Addo and his NPP government to take him and his
appointees on, if indeed, they stole from the public purse.
At one of the NDC’s so-called ‘unity walks’ held in
Techiman in the Brong-Ahafo Region in January, the former president had dared
the NPP government to arrest him and his wife, Lordina, if the government
believes they were in any way involved in the DKM Microfinance Company scandal
that rocked the region and other places.
Thousands of customers of DKM Microfinance lost
their investments, running into millions of Ghana cedis, after the owners of
the company had allegedly squandered the investments of customers.
The unfortunate incident forced a number of people
out of business while some even reportedly committed suicide.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) subsequently stepped in and
declared the company bankrupt before confiscating its assets and appointing the
Registrar General to commence a liquidation process to refund the customers’
investments in 2016.
Political
Topic
It became a heated political topic in the run-up to
the 2016 general elections, which Mr Mahama lost miserably, dashing his hope of
securing a second term in office and thereby making him the first sitting
president in Ghana’s political history to be defeated overwhelmingly by an
opposition leader.
“When the DKM issue came up, the NPP accused my wife
and me of owning that company. So they said when they come into power, they
will retrieve the money from us and give it back to those it was taken from. By
God’s grace today, they are now in power. I challenge them to investigate the
ownership of DKM. If DKM is owned by my wife and me, arrest us; but they are
now very quiet,” he had fired.
He added, “For lies, if you tell one, you have to
keep telling lies to save yourself. It is said that you can lie to win power
but you can’t govern a nation with lies,” he added.
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