Rejoinder -The Political Hijacking Of The Sissala East 2018 Overall Municipal Best Farmer Award By Fuseini Abdul-Fatawu

My attention has been drawn to a publication on 8^th December 2018 on modernghana.com website, (The Political Hijacking Of The Sissala East 2018 Overall Municipal Best Farmer Award) captioned above by one Fuseini Abdul-Fatawu. The publication by all intent and purposes lacks merit and must be treated with the disdain it deserves. The said writer, who occasionally publish an editorial column on modernghana.com should have now been known for conjecturing as amply demonstrated in the above-captioned article. With the foregoing, I wish to set straight of the writer’s, hypocrisy, conjectures, politicization, contradictions, lies and level of hatred for the Hon. Presiding Member of the Sissala East Municipal Assembly, our current and well deserved Best Farmer of the Municipality, the Member of Parliament and the Municipal Chief Executive, Sissala East Municipal Assembly.

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1. The whole article, is replete with hearsay ‘I WAS TOLD, I’M TOLD, and THEY CLAIM’. The claims in the article by the writer were predicated on calls he has allegedly received. The question is, who told the writer what? The calls were directed at the writer in his capacity as what?
2. The brandishing of marks awarded the competitors, is a clear case of lying. His source of information might be an insider who might have sighted the report, hence could have been in the position to provide him a copy of the report to authenticate his information. This is something any serious investigator should be interested in. It, therefore, makes no sense to call on the MCE, to make public the report. The onus lies on the writer to make the report public from his sources. The question is, can’t the MCE change the report to debunk the writer’s claim?
3. The claim that a high profile politician was awarded, does not sit well with reasoning and lack appreciation of the working of the local government system in Ghana. Can’t politicians or high profile persons be farmers? Is the position of the Presiding Member of the assembly partisan? It is hoped that the writer saw on TV the Ashanti Regional chairman of the NPP being awarded at this year’s farmer day ceremony in Tamale.
4. The writer and for that matter, the article has no focus and thus exposed the malice and hatred harboured by the writer against the Hon. Presiding Member. The writer realizing that there is nothing to hold on to, veered to issues of logging of rosewood, fertilizer and the PM slapping his blood brother who happens to be the constituency NPP communication director. The Hon. PM challenged the issues of fertilizer smuggling smeared him by the writer and his allies before the constituency executives of which the writer and his allies could not prove. The case has been referred to the council of elders for adjudication. As persons well brought up, we will not meddle in a row between brothers. The chairman of the party stands to be blamed for the tarnishing of the image of the PM and the NPP Party at large. If the Chairman had permitted the PM to proceed to court, the issue of illegal logging of rosewood as one of the unsubstantiated allegations would not have arisen.
5. The Hon. PM has not and never indicted by any court of competent jurisdiction and therefore, need not to be awarded the best farmer to clear him from any wrongdoing as claimed by the writer. Granted that he is indicted, how on earth can the mere award exonerate him? This claim is highly preposterous.

Attempted polarization of farmers award

1. The writer is a bitter person who has tried every means to politically influence the outcome of the awards committee’s report in favour of his preferred candidate, Ibrahim, who is Nankpawie NPP Polling Station Chairman. He did this through the following manoeuvring:

1. He raised the issue of bias against Ibrahim, his preferred candidate at the recent party meeting and called on party members present to rally behind Ibrahim to emerge as the best farmer. In that meeting, he was told by the constituency chairman of the party (NPP) that his own investigations at the Agric office reveals that the Hon. PM is far ahead of all his competitors. At this party meeting, the writer claims Ibrahim was adjudged the best. Why the sudden u-turn in the published article that Moro was adjudged the best? Many people were at the meeting who are willing to testify.
2. The writer upon realising that his preferred candidate was losing out as indicated by the chairman of the party, resorted to social media gimmicks in his attempt to pre-empt the outcome of the committee’s report (refer to the writer’s facebook wall and WhatsApp pages).

2. The said contestant, Ibrahim, possibly under the guidance of his allies such as the writer, engaged in the following uninformed political moves to influence the work of the committee:

1. He visited the Hon. MCE residence with the uninformed mind of lobbying him for the best farmer position. He confessed before MCE and other witnesses (who are willing to testify) the threat posed by the Hon. PM with regards being adjudged the best farmer.
2. The Hon. MP was also visited in his house in Tumu by the said Ibrahim in an attempt to lobby him to influence the process in his favour.

Advise to the writer (Fuseini Abdul-Fatawu)

1. There is the need to desist from armchair reportage which has the tendency of destroying the hard earn reputation of people and indulge in evidence-based investigations.
2. You have consistently over the years dragged the name of the Municipality into the mud, on the pretext of fighting rot in the society. You have been hiding under this veil to satisfying your parochial political whims and caprices. Please be a worthy ambassador of our dear municipality.
3. Let us build our institutions and encourage them to be independent and desist from throwing unsubstantiated allegations against them.

By: Issah Kanton