Akua Donkor
Banabas Kayase, one of the three persons accused of robbing Akua Donkor – founder of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP) – has disclosed that the complainant (Akua Donkor) was against the swearing-in of Nana Akufo-Addo as President of the Republic of Ghana.
According to him, Madam Akua Donkor had told him that she was travelling to America immediately after the 2016 elections because Nana Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration would kill her.
Banabas, then driver of Akua Donkor, was emphatic that his Madam had also told him that even if she travelled, she would make sure that former President John Dramani Mahama would not hand over to the then president-elect, Nana Addo.
Led by his lawyer, Vincent Aikins, for further evidence in the ongoing trial yesterday, Banabas told the Accra circuit court that Akua, at their first meeting at the Cocoa Clinic in Accra, said she would give him a job as secretary of the GFP because he is a handsome man.
Banabas said Akua Donkor enquired from him whether he knew her, and he answered that he had been seeing her on television.
Subsequent to their first meeting at Cocoa Clinic, Banabas claimed that Akua asked him to meet her at the Ebony Hotel at Pig Farm in Accra for further discussions on the job.
The accused person said his secretarial job was given to him verbally with a monthly salary of GH¢2,500.
He denied having conspired with the other accused persons in the dock – Razak Shaibu, a member of the GPRTU taskforce and Yakubu Yusif, trader and Central Regional Chairman of the GFP – to rob her Madam Akua Donkor.
He said although he was the driver of the controversial politician cum farmer, he did not accompany the complainant to change her $30,000 for her proposed trip.
Banabas denied the assertion by Akua Donkor that he had conspired with the others to rob her because of a misunderstanding (over unpaid salary) between them.
Lawyer Akins’ client maintained that he does not know the other accomplices – Joe and Nuamah aka Lion – currently on the run, neither did he benefit in any way from the alleged robbery.
On Monday, Banabas had categorically accused Akua Donkor of owing him GH¢20,000, being the total of his eight months’ salary.
He alleged that his Madam employed him on April 24, 2016 and agreed to pay the said amount.
Sitting continues tomorrow.
The prosecution said the accused persons, at about 2:30 am at Sowutuom, a suburb of Accra on December 30, 2016, and at Taifa in Accra, conspired to rob the GFP 2016 flag bearer at gunpoint and snatched her travelling bag containing plane ticket, Ghanaian passport, voter ID card, $30,000 and GH¢3,000.
By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson