Fired Ambassador denies bonking charge

Ghana’s Ambassador to Brazil has issued a statement denying he forced his 40-year old Nigerian Secretary to have sex with him on four separate occasions.

Helen Adewonuola, a Nigerian who naturalized as a Brazilian, accuses Mr Samuel Kofi Dadey of threatening to fire her if she had declined his sexual advances.

She allegedly gave in to the Ambassador’s persistent harassment but later reported the incident to the Civil Police of the Federal District in Brazil, according to the Daily Searchlight Newspaper which first broke the story.

The Secretary later filed a court case against the Ambassador for damages. The case was withdrawn after Mr Dadey agreed to pay about $22,000 to settle the issue out of court.

The Ghanaian Times reported on Saturday that President John Mills had recalled and immediately retired the Ambassador for his alleged misconduct. The apparent recall was attributed to Foreign Minister Alhaji Muhammed Mumuni.

But in a statement issued to the Ghanaian media through investigative journalist Justice Annan, Mr Dadey denies all the allegations, describing them as provocative and slanderous.

The Ambassador insists he only agreed to the out of court settlement proposed by the lawyer of Mrs Adewonuola to safeguard the image of the Embassy and on the advice of the sitting judge and the Brazilian Foreign Affairs ministry. “I personally bore the cost of the settlement because I did not think it was right for public funds to be spent on a case based on alleged sexual harassment by me,” the statement said

According to Mr Dadey, Mrs Adewonuola was sanctioned to serve as a warning to other staff to comply with Embassy regulations. She returned to post three days late after taking her leave.

He also claims Mrs Adewonuola claimed she had been forced to have sex six times with the Ambassador in papers filed with the court, but this number mysteriously dropped to four at the conclusion of the matter.

Kufuor unhappy with treatment since he left office

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has expressed disquiet about treatments he has been subjected to within the past one-and-a-half year since leaving office.

He made these comments in an interview on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show following an award given him by the Catholic Church.

He said he believes that while he was president of Ghana he served the country to the best of his ability. He regretted that after he had served Ghana well with the positive signs everywhere to be seen, some people were committed to downplaying his achievements and publishing negative materials about him on the internet.

The former president said that he will not pretend to have been a happy man over the past one and a half years, and that he feels deeply hurt by the relentless effort by some people to diminish his achievements during his tenure as president.

The Vatican late last week conferred on former President John Agyekum Kufuor the highest ecclesiastical honour of the Knight Commanderhood of the Order of Pope Pius IX.

Mr. Kufuor told host of Super Morning Show, Bernard Saibu that the award was from the Pope to him and his wife for loyal services rendered to the Catholic Church in Ghana, and that he was overjoyed to have had the honor bestowed on him. He said that the award was a very dear one to him as it was one which could not be lobbied-for.

He said that the Catholic award to him was very heart-warming because the church acknowledges his contributions to national development in spite of what others may want the world to believe.

On what he has doing in future, President Kufour said that he has been invited to Nigeria to be a key speaker at an ECOWAS forum in Abuja. He said also that the former president of USA President Jimmy Carter wrote to him about 3 months ago requesting him to co-chair the election observer group in La Cote d’ivoire for this year’s presidential elections with him.

Asamoah Gyan makes Fifa Ballon d'Or shortlist

An impressive World Cup performance has seen Ghana's Asamoah Gyan named in the shortlist for the Fifa Ballon d'Or, FIFA announced today.

The Ghana and Sunderland striker is among the 23 players nominated by the world governing body for the biggest personal award in world football.

Gyan's performances during the 2010 World Cup where he aided the Black Stars campaign to the quarter finals is one reason why he was named.

Lionel Messi is the reigning Ballon d'Or winner and Fifa World Player of the Year, but the awards have now been merged, so the best player in the world will be recognised by a single accolade - the Fifa Ballon d'Or.

Spain dominated the contenders as seven of their finals squad were included among the nominees for the prestigious award.

Though players from Europe dominate the list, Gyan together Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto'o from Cameroon give the continent - Africa - a presence.

The winners will be revealed in Zurich on 10th January, 2011.

World Player of the Year nominees:
Xabi Alonso (Spain), Daniel Alves (Brazil), Iker Casillas (Spain), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast), Samuel Eto'o (Cameroon), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Diego Forlan (Uruguay), Asamoah Gyan (Ghana), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Julio Cesar (Brazil), Miroslav Klose (Germany), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Maicon (Brazil), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Thomas Muller (Germany), Mesut Ozil (Germany), Carles Puyol (Spain), Arjen Robben (Holland), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Holland), David Villa (Spain) and Xavi (Spain).

Two grabbed for identity fraud

TWO PERSONS, Patrick Asumaning, 52, a Ghanaian, and Moses Osawaru Osaigbovo, a 25-year-old Nigerian, have been arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service for allegedly engaging in identify fraud.

Both men, according to the police, substituted the original photos embedded in some Ghanaian passports and replaced them with theirs to commit crimes at some financial institutions operating in the Accra metropolis.

Asumaning was in possession of two Ghanaian passports with numbers H0971258 and H1263003, bearing two different names, Stephen Nyarko Boateng and Kwame Owusu Mensah, with the same photos, while his Nigerian counterpart possessed a Ghanaian passport number H0794177, with the name Mark Johnson.

The latter was handed over to the police in an attempt to receive $150 from a Western Union branch at Teshie, a suburb of Accra.

The teller became alarmed when the details in the passport indicated that the bearer was born on November 1, 1968. A search conducted on him, revealed his real age as 25 years. Osaigbovo was born on March 14, 1984, in the Edo State of Nigeria.

The Deputy Director-General of CID, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Joshua Dogbeda, said the 52-year-old posed as one Stephen Nyarko Boateng, an account holder of a bank in Kumasi, and withdrew the sum of GH¢10,000 at its Kaneshie branch in Accra.

On October 12, he supposedly wrote a letter to the Services and Complaints Centre of the bank (name withheld), requesting to effect a change of his so-called foreign address to a postal address in Ghana.

Police said Asumaning managed to convince whoever was in-charge, and had his signature also, changed, because, according to him, he was unable to sign his old signature.

The said letter, ACP Dogbeda, noted was supported with a Ghanaian passport number H1263003, issued in January 2002. It bears also, personal data of the true account's holder.

The suspect virtually took over the bank account of the bonafade owner, Stephen Nyarko Boateng, who lives in the USA.

Further investigation revealed that the suspect, Asumaning, had on September 24 and 27, this year, presented a Ghanaian passport (H0971258), which bore the name Kwame Owusu Mensah, to another branch of the bank at Abeka, where he again, cashed an amount of GH¢17,000.

Asumaning further went to the Abossey Okai branch of the bank on October 19, to withdraw another whooping sum of GH¢10,000 from GH¢67,860.48.

Subsequently, ACP Dogbeda explained, 'He then proceeded to the Kaneshie branch to withdraw an extra GH¢10,000, where the Bank Manager became suspicious, and demanded his Ghanaian passport, which he readily gave out.

The Manager later detected that the passport was a fake, and called for the immediate arrest of Asumaning. During investigation, Asumaning admitted to committing the offence, and mentioned an accomplice, Owusu.

He told The Chronicle he only benefited GH¢1,500 from the gig. Asumaning and Osaigbovo would soon be arraigned before court.

Meanwhile, financial institutions in the country have been advised to critically examine documents such as voter's ID cards, passports, driver's licenses and others presented to them as evidence to claim money.

Again, the CID Headquarters said criminals had now adopted new forms of attack by forcibly opening the doors of vehicles while in traffic to attack their victims.

Thus, it cautioned the public to take precautionary measures to forestall such occurrences, and drivers ought to ensure that their car doors are well secured while in traffic.