Former Member of Parliament (MP) for the Chiana–Paga Constituency, Abuga Pele, says he believes that the truth about his incarceration “will come out one day.”
The former National Democractic Congress MP was sentenced to a six-year imprisonment by an Accra High Court in 2018, for causing financial loss to the state while he was the National Coordinator of the defunct Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency.
He was said to have acted in a manner that resulted in the loss of GH¢4.1 million by the government, after businessman Phillip Akpeena Assibit had made false claims that he had secured a $65-million World Bank funding for the creation of one million jobs for the youth.
Mr Pele was found guilty on two counts of abetment of fraud and five counts of wilfully causing financial loss to the state and received six years for abetment of fraud and four years for wilfully causing financial loss to the state, both to be served concurrently.
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Due to ill his health, Mr Pele was released earlier in July this year, after being granted presidential pardon by President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Speaking publicly for the first time since his release, Mr Pele, who was received with a rousing welcome back home to his hometown of Paga – Nakolo in the Upper East Region on Saturday, August 21, said he made a good impact on the lives of prisoners at the Nsawam prisons.
“The people in prisons are my younger brothers, my sisters and my fathers. Some of them needed help [and] maybe God sent me there to help them,” he told a crowd of his constituents who gathered at the palace of the Nakolo chief.
“I became the headmaster of the school that produced graduates. They do the Distance [Learning] course from Cape Coast [University]. I was the coach for the young football team. I took the opportunity to entertain the whole prison,” Mr Pele said.
He, however, refused to speak about the incident that led to his incarceration, saying he believed that the truth had its own way of coming to light.
“Thank God for my release, I thank the President, I thank the people of Nakolo, I thank all the people who were instrumental in getting me out of prison. There is another day that may come to enable me to explain a lot things and say a lot of things.
“If I have not said anything concerning my incarceration or what led to it or what the outcome has been, it is because the truth, as has been said often, will surely come out one day,” Mr Pele added.
His family members said, Mr Pele’s imprisonment created a time of turbulence for them, therefore, they expressed their gratitude to President Nana Akufo-Addo, for granting him pardon.
Michael Gantera, who spoke on behalf of Mr Pele’s family, said: “There comes a moment in a person’s life when the storms seem so turbulent, strong and frightening, terrible and devastating.
“These were the exact happenings that rocked us as a family, when our father, brother, uncle, husband and friend, Abuga Pele was sentenced to prison. Our hearts broke, we shed tears and we wished the news was a scam.
“Today, our depleting hope is restored and we have every reason to be happy and jubilate. We want to extend our sincerest and heartfelt gratitude to the president of the republic of Ghana, His Excellency, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the presidential pardon granted our dear father, husband and friend, Abuga Pele,” he added.