We won’t undermine Asanteman - President Akufo-Addo assures Otumfuo
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has made a move to assuage the feelings of the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, over allegations that some persons close to the Presidency are undermining his authority as the occupant of the Golden Stool.
The President is said to have held a meeting with the Asantehene at the Manhyia Palace Tuesday on the matter.
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Sources at Manhyia were not forthcoming with details about the meeting.
However, the Daily Graphic gathered that the President assured the Asantehene that there was no way he and his government would do anything to bring the Golden Stool into disrepute.
The meeting came after the National Security Minister, Mr Albert Kan Dapaah, had met the Asantehene last Sunday.
Furious Otumfuo
Last Wednesday, a furious Otumfuo Osei Tutu is said to have told a group of New Patriotic Party (NPP) top men, including the acting General Secretary, Mr John Boadu, who had called on him at the Manhyia Palace how some persons within the party were trying to pitch him against the Akyems.
Mr Boadu, who is vying for the General Secretary position in the upcoming NPP national election, had gone to the Manhyia Palace with other leading party figures to seek the blessing of the Asantehene in the election, but the Asantehene could not hide what appeared to have hurt him.
The delegation, which also included the Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Simon Osei-Mensah; the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Mr Bernard Antwi Boasiako, and the Regional Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr Kwabena Nsenkyire, went on their knees to plead for clemency on behalf of the party.
Otumfuo Osei Tutu’s typical calm disposition gave way to a fierce reaction to the alleged moves to undermine his power and it took the intervention of his trusted linguist, Baffour Kantankrakyi, to intercede on behalf of the delegation to calm the Asantehene down.
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Although Otumfuo was not specific about the allegations and the persons he was referring to, a group calling itself the Concerned Youth of Asante (CYA) mentioned the Executive Secretary to the President, Nana Bediatuo Asante, and a cousin of the President, Mr Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, as the men behind the orchestration to dent the image of the Asantehene.
A day after the Otumfuo’s outburst, Mr Otchere-Darko took to his Twitter handle to deny the allegation against him.
“Am I so stupid that I would work against my own interest and turn one half of me against the other half by inciting my mother’s people against my father’s people; that I would bite the very hand that feeds us politically? Perplexing,” he tweeted.
Nana Bediatuo Asante has, meanwhile, not made any public statement on the matter.
The President of the CYA, Nana Agyenim Boateng, in a statement, took on Mr Otchere-Darko for showing disrespect to the Golden Stool by taking to social media to respond to Otumfuo.
He alleged that the insults directed at the Asantehene had built up over the years and that the Otumfuo had every reason to express his disgust about the development.