Gov’t Chases Mahama’s Running Mate Contenders   -Dufour, Asiamah in the crosshair

The recent reports that the Ghana Police service was on a hunt for former Finance Minister Dr. Kwabena Duffour has raised suspicions in the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that the Akufo Addo administration may be systematically targeting potential running-mates of ex-President John Mahama’s
 
Dr. Duffour is also alleged to be a major financier of the NDC political campaign.
 
Whatsup News has gathered that Dr. Duffour and Dr Johnson Asiamah, Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) are individuals who have been penned down as potential running-mate for the NDC flagbearer Mahama.
 
However, in the last couple of days, pressure appears to have mounted on the two for their alleged roles in the unprecedented collapse of several universal banks in Ghana.
 
The Daily Statesman, a newspaper aligned to the ruling government today announced that Dr. Duffour and Dr. Asiamah were on the run.
 
However, insiders close to Dr. Duffour have told Whatsup News that the report was deliberate misinformation because Dr. Duffour could not abscond, given the fact that he is in court, having sued the government for causing the collapse of his bank, UniBank Ghana.
 
Whatsup News gathered that on January, 16, 2020, Dr Duffuor sued the Police CID, the IGP and the Attorney General over an invitation that the Police sent to him to explain certain allegations concerning UniBank,
 
The former Deputy Governor, Dr Asiamah has also sued the Police, the IGP and the Attorney for what he describes as harassment and baseless invitations that only wasted his time.
The Attorney General, the IGP and the Police CID have reportedly failed to respond to all the suits filed in the High Courts, Accra and thus, the evasiveness could be the other way round, said the insider.
 
People close to Dr. Duffour are convinced that the situation with Dr. Duffour was a “Witch hunt” because Dr. Duffour had refused to authorise funds requested by a Danquah Institute (DI), a think-tank linked to the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP)
 
Apparently, before the 2016 elections, DI had approached Dr. Duffour to authorise UniBank to extend some facility to it. Dr. Duffour has reportedly referred DI to someone else because he claimed he was not involved in the management of UniBank.
 
This incident has reportedly caused bad blood between the NPP and Duffour since then and that Dr. Duffour thinks the targeting of his bank was to settle some scores from the aforementioned encounter.