A former Sports Minister under the Kufuor administration has dared his former boss to meet him at the dreaded Antoa Nyamaa shrine in the Ashanti region, to prove whether he stole the $46,000 that eventually led to his incarceration in 2001.
Mallam Ali Yusif Issah, a member of the People’s National Convention (PNC) co-opted into the NPP administration, received a four year jail term in 2001 for failing to account for $46,000 meant as winning bonus for the senior national soccer team, the Black Stars, who were then on a national assignment in Sudan.
He was however granted a presidential pardon in July 2003 due to poor health.
Mallam Issah has always maintained his innocence, insisting he was framed by persons within the Kufuor administration with the connivance of the then President.
Speaking in the latest defence of his integrity on Time FM in Obuasi, the former Minister insisted he was used as a sacrificial lamb by the NPP, who wanted to be seen to be fulfilling a pledge to fight corruption. President Kufuor pushed for his prosecution mainly because he was not a member of his party, he maintains.
To prove his innocence therefore, he is daring the former President to meet him at the shrine so they both invoke the gods to adjudicate in the matter.
“If President Kufuor says I am the one who stole the money, I’m a Muslim, he is a Christian, let’s go to Antoa Nyamaa and swear and after one week we will see who will die.
“I am a Muslim 100 per cent but I want instant justice. I’m giving him one week. He (President Kufuor) should come so we go to Antoa and swear, and if he doesn’t die then I’m not a Ghanaian. They deliberately framed me, Kufuor, former Energy Minister [Albert Kan Dapaah] and many others. I’ve given him one week,” he said.
Mallam Issah strongly agreed with former President Rawlings’ assertion that his immediate successor, J. A. Kufuor, was corrupt, insisting that several of his appointees were corrupt but he turned a blind eye to it because of politics.
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