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05.08.2004 Gossips

Is it true that...

05.08.2004 LISTEN
By PALAVER INTELLIGENCE

The NPP Government is holding a series of secret meetings with certain NDC executives and functionaries identified as "soft targets" and influencing or attempting to influence them with huge sums of money to either defect or disorganise the NDC within their constituencies, and that the recent stage-managed "defections" in the Hohoe North, Abuakwa West and Ayawaso Central constituencies are all part of this master strategy, described in the NPP rigging manual as "psychological destabilization" of the NDC, and that at a meeting of the NPP election strategy group held on Monday 19th July 2004, it was decided to apply the strategy in the Odododiodoo, East Ayawaso, Kpone Katamanso and Korley Klottey constituencies, all in the Greater Accra Region?

*Agents of the NPP are going round the rural areas with photographs of former President J. J. Rawlings and incumbent President J. A. Kufuor and falsely misinforming the rural people that President Rawlings is coming back to contest again, the tactic being that given the immense popularity and appeal of the former President especially in the rural areas, if on election day the rural electorate do not see the photograph of Rawlings on the ballot paper, they would then be forced to vote for President Kufuor as the only other person they know, and that this disinformation strategy is being executed to great effect especially in the Central, Eastern and Volta Regions?

*Following appearance of Captain Kojo Tsikata (Rtd.), Tsatsu Tsikata and Kwamena Ahwoi before the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) and the very favourable impression that they created, some high level tension has been created in the security services, especially within the Ghana Armed Forces, which has sent the NPP Government and its security and intelligence agencies panicking, with the result that the National Security Council (NSC) and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) have placed the three persons under 24-hour surveillance, and that also placed under 24-hour surveillance are Dr. Obed Asamoah, former President J. J. Rawlings and Mr. Ato Ahwoi?

*Among the reasons given by respondents for their answers in the special secret security preparations survey for the December elections conducted by the security and intelligence agencies which showed the NDC leading the NPP by 58% to 38% (see last Friday's 'Ghana Palaver Intelligence' column) were the following:

(i) Loss of confidence in the NPP Government because of loss of jobs and businesses, especially communication centre operators;

(ii) Complaints by farmers of high cost of inputs;

(iii) Loss of jobs in the timber and forestry sector;

(iv) High cost of spare parts for vehicles by drivers in the commercial transportation sector;

Complaints by meddle level business people such as forex bureau operators, importers and exporters of serious slump in business?

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