Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has extended an olive branch to his former colleague, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, in the wake of recent revelations that he was involved in a plot to run him down over his fight to end illegal mining popularly known as “galamsey” in the country.
In a statement released to the media on Friday, April 21, 2023, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah described the allegations as “completely false and a fabricated account”, one deliberately put out to impugn his reputation as Minister for Information.
“Over the years, I had nothing but great admiration for Prof Boateng’s public spirited works and as an inspirational citizen. I feel gravely offended over the false claims he has made and the hurtful conclusions he has sought to exact about me precisely because of the great esteem in which I have held him.
“I trust that in the coming months and years he will reflect deeply upon his own actions and comments which have led to his challenges. He should kindly leave me out of his personal fights. I am utterly disappointed, but I forgive him,” the statement said.
Mr. Oppong Nkrumah’s response comes on the back of a 37-page report filed to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo by the former Minister citing Mr. Oppong Nkrumah as scheming to run him down during his tenure as Chairman of the dissolved Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM).
The report made several allegations against some government and political party officials who made various attempts allegedly to thwart his efforts in clamping down on illegal mining in the country.
According to the report. Mr. Oppong Nkrumah assembled a group of NPP and NDC journalists on February 8, 2020, in Dodowa to discuss a strategy to bring him (Prof. Boateng) down, an event that occasioned negative media reports about his fight against illegal mining. The report also claimed that Mr. Oppong Nkrumah’s briefs to Cabinet on the missing excavators saga were deliberate and sinister act targeted at him and his fight against galamsey.
This Mr. Oppong Nkrumah denied the allegations questioning the feasibility and prudence of a scenario of getting journalists from different political parties to a meeting to orchestrate sabotage against a colleague Minister stating that it is against his moral principles and upbringing to engage in schemes or practices that seek to hurt others.
