Last week Wednesday was a sad day for those of us working on this newspaper. We were sad for the disaster that happened on the Volta Lake. That aside, the most disgraceful thing that happened that day was when we called the National Security Advisor, Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah, over issues concerning the imported 2150 bags of rice which he explained was a pure “gift” to the Presidency from an unnamed person.
73 year old Brigadier General Nuuno Mensah instead of answering the questions posed by the paper rather told the Editor to stop following how the rice got into the country and who imported it and that DAYBREAK should rather focus its attention on the diplomatic gossip, called “Wikileaks”, which according to him was “exciting”.
“Your case is not a case at all….talk about the Wikileaks because it is exciting” were the shameful words spewed from his mouth.
What saddens us most is that General Nuuno Mensah is President Mills’ Chief Advisor on national security matters and we wonder the type of advice he offers the President when his views are sought. Why is America seeking to protect the over 4000 informants whose names have popped out? The politics of Lebanon should even tell him something?
It is surprising that General Nuuno Mensah takes pleasure in the diplomatic gossip from the leaked cables of the United States of America and we on this paper doubt whether he is aware of what is going on in terms of his area of specialty on which he gives advice to the President. We can cite many examples but we won’t.
The Management and Publishers of DAYBREAK still stand by the text message our Editor sent him and we agree with our Editor that he is A DISGRACE TO THE PRESIDENCY.
If, it is for political capital for the office he holds then the old General who normally veers off the road when talking to him or granting a radio interview should re-think again.
General Nuuno Mensah is very narrow-minded. We can say so because he came to limelight by the politicization of the Ghana Armed Forces. He prides himself as the only officer of the Ghana Armed Forces to have been appointed Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) on two occasions. Yet, he fails to add that he won that accolade courtesy Jerry Rawlings who on those two occasions staged military coups to overthrow incumbent governments, one military (SMC II) and the other constitutional (the PNP Administration led by the late Dr Hilla Limann).
Readers should recollect his “hand over to whom” response when on an official trip to Nigeria in 1982 he was asked when the PNDC would hand over to a democratically elected government. Because at that time, he was the head of the Armed Forces and a member of the PNDC (both the Legislative and Executive Organs of government), he could not imagine that the PNDC would hand over power to any other body
When he fell out of love with the P/NDC he joined the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and became its Parliamentary Candidate for Winneba/Efutu Constituency. When he failed to win the Parliamentary seat and lost the “monopoly” he enjoyed in the NPP on Defence and security matters especially those concerning Rawlings and the P/NDC, he became disillusioned, frustrated and hungry for power.
Consequently, he left the NPP and re-joined the P/NDC where together with other military opportunists he started telling lies about the Military High Command under President JA Kufuor like the very lies he told the NPP about Jerry Rawlings.
As for his claims that he is 73years and our Editor should watch the way he speaks and writes else he cannot even attain 50 years, we can only reply him that age is just a number and some teenagers may be more sensible than some octogenarians.
Secondly, Nuuno Mensah just does not get it. His gray hair does not make him the giver and taker of life who can decide on how many years one should live on earth depending on who pleases him and who does not. After all it is not even a guarantee that he would live to see tomorrow. We remind him of the saying that both green and dry leaves do fall from trees.
This is not the first time our Editor has been told about his age and reminded of death by elements close to the Presidency.
Lieutenant Colonel AK Gbevlo Lartey was the first to pass such a comment when our Editor wanted to find out whether his office was putting up an office complex for a pot-belly Editor in his father’s house at Kanda. Our Editor was detained by personnel of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) headed by Yaw Donkor under the instructions of this same Nuuno Mensah.
In the Wikileaks that won’t expose the fraud like somebody somewhere importing rice into the country and using the Chief Of State (a position which does exist) and the President’s Office as a consignee, it is stated that President Mills has “surrounded himself with inexperienced advisors who are providing poor counsel” and we think General Nuuno Mensah is one of the best examples.
Shame Again!
