Dr Tony Aidoo, a former Deputy Minister of Defence under the erstwhile Jerry John Rawlings administration is reported to have had a hefty slap from a pedestrian.
This was after John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration was inaugurated in the year 2001, Prof Kwamena Ahwoi has reported.
In his book ‘Working With Rawlings’, Prof Ahwoi wrote that the former Deputy Minister was driving home in his private car after a programme on Vibe 91.9 FM.
From nowhere, an unknown pedestrian slapped him on his face at a traffic light at Asylum Down.
Prof Ahwoi noted that young boys and girls hawking their wares along the streets close to the traffic lights appeared to have been organised and they chanted ‘awi ooo, awi ooo, awi ooo’ to wit ‘thief, thief, thief’.
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They were reported to be referring to patrons they could identify as having worked with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.
The precursor to that incident was that Dr Aidoo had been accused by Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, the then Chief of Staff at the Presidency, that official government vehicles had been stolen by members of the previous NDC administration.
This, Prof Ahwoi said, “was taken up by the media, and followed by legal and illegal squads of New Patriotic Party operatives going through homes and private offices of the ex-NDC appointees in search of the alleged stolen vehicles.”
Prof. Ahwoi said that President Kufuor at the time joined the fray, alleging that the official cars purchased by the departing ministers had been undervalued.
“He [Kufuor] issued an ‘edict’ that the affected ministers should either pay the difference between the prices at which they purchased the cars and the supposed revalued prices determined by him or return the cars,” Prof Ahwoi’s book read.
Some ministers, according to Prof Ahwoi, returned their cars but 10 of them including Mike Hammah, Kwamena Ahwoi, Martin Amidu, Daniel Ohene Agyekum and Cecilia Johnson returned their vehicles.
Margaret Clerke-Kwesie and Ama Benyiwa-Doe, however, refused to pay the alleged difference and did not return the cars.
Instead, they sued the government for breach of contract and violation of their constitutional rights to own property.
After a long legal battle that ran from the High Court to the Court of Appeal, it was held that the “plaintiff-appellants should either pay the alleged difference or park the cars.”