Nima Sacks Kufuor ‘Killer’
The people of the sprawling Accra suburb of Nima have distanced themselves from Thomas Osei, the man who caused the accident involving the President's motorcade, stating that it is wrong to describe him as a 'Nima boy'.
Thomas Osei, as he is being referred to, rammed his Mercedes 500 S into President John Agyekum Kufuor's vehicle when the latter was en route to his office a fortnight ago.
Currently making appearances before a court, Thomas Osei's real name is Kamal Deen Abdulai, a native of Bole in the Northern Region but born to a Fante woman in Saltpond in the Central Region.
He speaks Hausa, Fante, Gonja and some Arabic.
DAILY GUIDE has also gathered that the man had shown interest in making the Hajj this year, as a result of which he approached some officials of the Hajj Council in Accra.
Speaking variously to DAILY GUIDE, the residents of Nima questioned how someone who briefly sojourned in their part of the city could be called a son of the place.
According to Mr. Ibrahim Kudanzuma, an opinion leader in Nima, Babs, another name by which Thomas Osei is called by his Nima friends, lived in Nima briefly before leaving for an overseas country.
At the time that he lived in Nima, Kudanzuma went on, he stayed with the wife of a wealthy Nima man, the now deceased Alhaji Kazaure.
“He did not rent a room, nor could he point at a house as belonging to his father or his mother. How can we describe such a person as a son of Nima? The whole thing was mischievous, I dare say,” said a livid Alhaji Ibrahim.
Continuing, he said the man was merely in transition in Nima.
Alhaji Sadat Ahmed, the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the Nasara Club of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who stormed the offices of DAILY GUIDE with his reaction, expressed disappointment that the man was described as a son of Nima.
“He only lived briefly in Nima after which he left for a foreign country. Upon his return, now a prosperous man, he did not return to the area which offered him a place to lay his head. Now that he has messed himself up, people are associating him with Nima,” he said.
Sadat said it is erroneous for people to associate Nima with negative things, adding that every area has its share of bad nuts. Nima, he said, has both good and bad people.
“When people come close to us, they would realize the stuff we are made of,” he said.
Mr. Ibrahim Jebkle a.k.a. Dr Avalon, Chairman of the Nima Watchdog Committee told DAILY GUIDE that Babs cannot claim to be a Nima man “because he lived here only briefly after which he travelled outside the country.”
Narrating what he knew about the man, he said, “He came to Nima in the 70s and lived with the wife of the late Alhaji Kazaure. When he left the country, we did not hear about him until when the Kasoa road construction project was commenced. Living in an area for between two and three years cannot make you an indigene of the place.”
Showing remorse for what he described as the erroneous association of Nima with bad things, he said, “Some of the bad things we hear about are not committed by Nima indigenes but by strangers.”
DAILY GUIDE has gathered that Thomas Osei's Islamic name is Kamalu Deen Abdulai and that he is currently executing a major contract in the Yamoransa area.
Having been in Egypt, the man is said to have gone wayward by taking to alcoholism and avoiding the daily prayers expected of practicing Muslims.
In captivity now, one of his friends told DAILY GUIDE that “he appears to have repented and is taking his five times daily prayers seriously.”
This was not the case previously, the friend who lives in Nima told DAILY GUIDE yesterday. “On one occasion, when some friends demanded some money from him, he responded sarcastically, “Ask the prayers to provide the money for you.”
Thomas Osei rammed the President's car, an accident which made the headline news and prompted copious discussions as to whether it was a deliberate action or not.
When it was revealed that the man once lived in Nima and the news made the rounds, residents of the sprawling suburb condemned the description as mischievous and tendentious.
On his part, Alhaji Umoru Baba Issah, Chairman of the Ayawaso Council of Chiefs reiterated the views of the afore-mentioned Nima residents, arguing that the man only 'perched' in the area for a while.
Soon after the accident, Thomas was arrested and charged with negligently causing harm and driving under the influence of alcohol.
The President's car somersaulted thrice before landing on its roof on a nearby pavement but surprisingly, the First Citizen was unscathed.