Gisselle Yagzi Is A Walking Dynamite

Mr. Kwamena Ahwoi, the Director of Research of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has joined the pro-NDC media in hailing as credible the utterances of Miss Gisselle Yagzi, the Iraqi-American lady who was at one time a 'transaction advisor' to the Minister of Finance in the Government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Speaking on Radio Gold's 60 minutes programme last Tuesday, Mr. Ahwoi described Miss Yagzi as a “walking dynamite of a woman so far as the NPP is concerned”.

According to him, the information Miss Yagzi has with regards to the “Hotel Kufuor” and her alleged intimacy with the President were damaging to the extent that “if I were them, as soon as the story broke I would have made contact with her and done a deal with her”.

“Yes”, he continued, “unless you are confident that she is lying”. Mr. Ahwoi said he had two examples of what was waiting for the NPP and was surprised that the media had not picked up these things.

He said Miss Yagzi “is saying that the President has not only bought the hotel, he has also bought the property in between his house and the hotel”.

Ahwoi dared anybody in the NPP to dispute Yagzi's assertion or confirm it, adding “has that also been bought by John Kufuor” – referring to the President's son, Chief Kufuor.

He said that Yagzi had strongly indicated that she had documents pertaining to the transaction on the property in question.

“What does President Kufuor say to that?”, he asked. “Is it true?”, he continued. “If he has bought it did he buy it and then left the son to buy the hotel?”, he demanded further.

He also asked whether the woman's claim was false, stressing that the claim was an important matter she had put in the public domain.

He said Yagzi's declaration on Radio Gold that she was going to sue the President in a “purely private matter which may require him a hell of examination”, indicated that there could be a truth in the rumour that the President had had an intimate affair with the lady.

“What is it that she has on President Kufuor that will require our President undergoing a hell of examination?”, he asked.

Mr. Ahwoi said the nation's security and image were threatened if Yagzi could claim she had an intimate relationship with the President and also recorded him on tape without the former's knowledge.

He said the President's security must be blamed for allowing the lady to go past them and record the President without his knowledge, if her claims were true.

The NDC Research Director asked the NPP to ascertain the contents of the supposed recording of the President before dismissing Yagzi as somebody trying to blackmail the President.

When asked what was the NDC's official position on the hotel issue, Mr. Ahwoi said “I believe that the party will be coming out very soon”.

Again pushed to disclose what could be the NDC's position on the matter, Ahwoi said he was not responsible for such intelligence issues that the party had to deal with, but his was restricted to research.

Challenged further on the veracity of Yagzi's story, Ahwoi said “the amount of information the woman has put in the public domain is such that you cannot just write her off”.

“And if I were the NPP, I'll take her seriously to find a way of dealing with her”, he re-iterated.

According to him, since the ownership of the hotel and the President's relationship with Yagzi were personal issues, the Chief of Staff should not have been drawn into the matter, to deliver a statement of denial on behalf of the President.

He asked what the reaction would be if it turned out that the lady's claims that the President owned the hotel and had had an intimate relationship with her, were true.

“Does the President share all his secrets with the Chief of Staff?”, he asked.

He said it was necessary to keep the President's official matters from meddling with his private matters.

Citing the South African President, Thabo Mbeki's dismissal of his Vice President, Jacob Zuma on grounds of alleged corruption, Ahwoi said the President should have been bold enough to talk to the nation on the matter once and for all and put it to rest.

When asked whether it was wrong for the President's son to own a hotel, Ahwoi said no but the problem had to do with the manner in which the matter was initially handled, that had led to a public perception that it was rather the President who bought the property and was using the son as a front man.

He dismissed as untrue the suggestion that the NDC was rather making political capital out of t he issue, saying even members of the NPP, the CDD and the General Secretary of the Christian Council were demanding an independent investigation into the matter.

Ahwoi blamed the NPP Government as being responsible for the attention the ownership of the hotel near the President's private residence has assumed.