Salifu Maase, aka Mugabe
The radio presenter who was jailed for threatening judges but pardoned by former President John Mahama has crossed the redline again, saying Manasseh Azure Awuni, investigative reporter with Joy FM will be killed by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) within 11 months.
Salifu Maase, aka Mugabe, said the NPP would kill him just like Ahmed Suale, the private investigator of ace journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who was gruesomely killed recently by some assailants.
Mugabe claimed he had been possessed by the ‘Holy Spirit.’
“The fake ones (prophets) can come out and say whatever they like but I’m speaking in the spiritual realm. Manasseh Awuni, I am speaking to your parents and I’m not speaking as Mugabe but the Holy Spirit is using me,” he claimed.
Mugabe is an activist of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), who kept a low profile for a long time after his truncated jail term at the Nsawam Prison.
During a programme on Accra-based Radio XYZ, he said: “I speak without fear; NPP will kill Manasseh Azure in 11 months.”
According to him, the ruling party would kill the radio presenter because of his exposeabout the supposed training of a militia at the Osu Castle, an allegation which has been debunked by government.
He said the journalist requires security from the state, lest he is killed.
“If the security agencies do not protect him they will finish him; they will get rid of him. I speak without fear or favour; this is a gift God has given to me.”
He pleaded with the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to take his statement seriously.
He added “I’m repeating, if the security agencies do not protect him, the NPP will kill him just as they did to Ahmed Hussein Suale. The truth is one and as for me they can’t touch me and if you try me you will die first,” he said confidently.
“I’m saying it again if the security of this country does not protect Manasseh they will take his life at Joy FM.”
He did not spare the CID for inviting the NDC National Chairman Ofosu-Ampofo and vented his spleen at the CID boss Yaa Tiwa Addo Danquah and the IGP David Asante-Apeatu, saying “from the CID to the police service, they are all useless; fake people. CID boss, Tiwa Addo, is a useless person.”
Mugabe and his colleague caught the headlines in 2016 when they made very threatening remarks against the then Chief Justice Theodora Woode on his programme Montie FM.
Unfortunately, the NDC did not find his distasteful political remarks appalling, as they visited him during his incarceration.
Mugabe and two panelists Godwin Ako Gunn and Alister Nelson on a programme on pro-NDC Montie FM were convicted of contempt by the Supreme Court in 2016.
They were sentenced to four months’ imprisonment and simultaneously fined GH¢10,000 each.
Presiding judge Sophia Akuffo, now Chief Justice, did not mince words when she said that they were ‘reckless’ in their attack, as the day was the eve of Martyrs Day – a day set aside to remember judges murdered by agents of the PNDC junta which metamorphosed into NDC over 30 years ago.
Presidential Powers
There was outrage in the country over the utterances of Mugabe and his two colleagues and some people described the sentence as too lenient.
When former President John Mahama eventually pardoned them, which was predicted, it was seen as a stab in the back of the judiciary and an affront to morality.
By A.R. Gomda