When the Member of Parliament for Lower Manya, Michael Teye Nyaunu came out to make allegations that the Mills camp was influencing people to prevent them from endorsing the nomination forms of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the entire government communication machinery went after him.
They said it was part of a grand face-saving scheme being employed by the former First Lady�s campaign team to win public sympathy in case she loses the upcoming primary to incumbent NDC leader, President Atta Mills.
But on Sunday, May 15, 2011, a member of Konadu�s campaign team, who is also the Upper West regional coordinator, Sulemana Abubakar, was quizzed by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).
Sulemana yesterday told DAILY GUIDE he received a call from the Wa East district officer of the BNI whose name he gave as Collins.
According to him, the officer initially invited him to his office which he declined, after which he (officer) sought to know whether the spokesman for the Rawlingses Kofi Adams was in the region and whether they were forcing delegates against their will to endorse the nomination forms of Nana Konadu.
Sulemana said he indeed admitted that Mr Adams was in the region but denied the officer�s claim that they were forcing delegates to endorse the nomination forms because at the time, the forms had already been endorsed by some executives.
According to him, the officer then demanded to know the names and identities of those executives who endorsed the forms, which he bluntly declined to mention, for fear of victimisation.
This, according to Sulemana, was because members of the Mills campaign team were going round intimidating those who were endorsing Nana Konadu�s nominations.
In spite of all of these frustrations and underhand dealings by members of Mills�s campaign team, Sulemana and his colleagues of the Nana Konadu campaign team say they remain resolute and unwavering in their efforts to get her elected to lead the NDC to the 2012 election.
Kofi Adams has since criticised the conduct of the BNI and other state apparatus in meddling in a purely party affair, describing it as an abuse of incumbency.
�The BNI has no business in who works for whom for them to be inviting people to their offices. If they so feel that they want information on anything�to go round the communities and branch by branch to be begin to ask specific questions but stop inviting party people who are perceived to be supporting Nana Konadu for questioning and what have you,� he said.
Furthermore, he said, �We will not countenance these infringements on rights of persons to support the candidate of their choice.
�If we say with out mouth that we believe in democracy and we allow state institutions such as the BNI to be going into our political activities like the way they are doing� because this is an NDC affair and so if an NDC member is assisting another NDC person to endorse forms, what has the BNI got to do in inviting him to find out who and who is endorsing the form and why they are endorsing?� Mr Adams charged.
According to him, if the BNI wanted to know anything about the activities of the former First Lady, �it is for them to find their way of getting their information, not to call the members of the team and be questioning them the way they are questioning them�.
Asked whether they in the Konadu camp were shaken by some of these developments, Kofi Adams said, �Not at all, we knew that things such as this are possible happening {sic} so we prepared for that. The gentleman himself who was invited was not shaken so why should we.�
Kofi Adams however said, �There are so many activities of crime that is (sic) going on, BNI should go and concentrate on that and leave NDC matters alone.�
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