George Afriyie
This is the concluding part of a piece we carried in yesterday’s edition.
DAILY GUIDE’s investigations confirm that Mr. Afriyie was endorsed by a Kumasi-based journalist. Our checks further confirm that the club’s President, who has currently left the shores of the country, authorised the journalist to sign.
Furthermore, DAILY GUIDE sighted the GFA Statutes which talk about who a signatory of a club is and per Article 13 (2) (j) that any club can appoint a new signatory and has up to 30 days to officially inform the GFA by writing to the General Secretary.
Below is the said Article: “a list of officials, specifying those who are authorised signatories with the right to enter into legally binding agreements with third parties. Any changes of officials and authorised signatories shall be communicated in writing to the General Secretary within thirty (30) days of the said change.”
Our source close to the Elections Committee confirmed that Mr. Afriyie submitted six endorsements. When contacted, Mr. Afriyie’s Acting Spokesperson, Emmanuel Akyereko Frimpong, declined to comment on the number of endorsements they filed.
The Elections Committee of the GFA is one of the independent bodies of the GFA, and is expected to work free of any influence and machinations from anybody within the hierarchy and top brass of the GFA.
Our source close to the Elections Committee revealed that staff of the GFA, who currently work under the incumbent President, have been deliberately assigned to the Elections Committee. These individuals, working with the independent committee, have access to all the information presented to the Vetting Committee and in turn reveal the details to the GFA President who then tasked individuals to write petitions against certain aspirants who are not in his camp, the source alleged.
Two individuals whose names have come up for disqualification are Executive Council aspirant Braimah Moro Akanbi, popularly known as Alhaji Akanbi, who is contesting on the ticket of Hearts of Oak for the Premier League ExCo. and Johnson Oduro Bosompem, an aspirant seeking to contest Samuel Aboabire for the Greater Accra RFA chairmanship position, have been penciled down for disqualification.
However, recent speculations about the independent nature of the work of the committee have been questioned by the numerous media reports about plots to disqualify Mr. Afriyie from the race.