Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi has expressed concern over the level of insight and information available to a nephew of the president, Gabby Otchere Darko as regards Ghana’s fight against the coronavirus.
According to him, the founder of Danquah Institute has in these past few days depicted to Ghanaians that he has some level of insight about Ghana’s fight against the novel coronavirus which is unavailable to the ordinary Ghanaian.
Mr Otchere Darko, in an attempt to assess President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s decision to remove restrictions on movement and its impact on Ghanaians, made quite unexpected predictions about the number of coronavirus recoveries the country will see in the coming weeks.
In his article titled ‘Is Lockdown the Only Science-driven Option for Ghana?’ he wrote amongst other things that the country is most likely to have more than 500 coronavirus patients make a complete recovery in the next three weeks.
“My prediction is that over the next three weeks alone, we are likely to have over 500 cases of recovered cases in Ghana after the mandatory two successful negative tests,” he stated.
In an attempt to also defend the president’s decision, he also argued that “some of the countries combating this pandemic more effectively than most countries, are not in lockdown. They did all the other things we are doing, including aggressive contact tracing and testing and shunned lockdown,” he argued.
But the vociferous NDC executive, Sammy Gyamfi has called Gabby Otchere Darko out on Twitter today questioning the basis of his arguments.
He alleged that Gabby Otchere Darko who is a leading member of the New Patriotic Party may know a lot more about Ghana’s current coronavirus status and the ulterior motive behind the removal of restrictions on movement at a point where the country has recorded more cases yet.
Describing Mr Octhere Darko as Ghana’s de facto Prime Minister, Sammy Gyamfi summarized his thoughts with the following words; “Prez Akufo-Addo’s Nephew and GH’s de-facto PM, flies a kite on the likelihood of GH recording 500 COVID-19 recoveries in weeks. What does Gabby know that we don’t know? Prof. Akosa’s revelation about government’s massaging of data on my mind. Hmmm!”.
Prez Akufo-Addo’s Nephew and GH’s de-facto PM, flies a kite on the likelihood of GH recording 500 COVID-19 recoveries in weeks. What does Gabby know that we don’t know? Prof. Akosa’s revelation about government’s massaging of data on my mind. Hmmm! https://t.co/CEZUShyJ2O
After three weeks of imposed restrictions on the movement of persons within some parts of Greater Accra, Tema, Kasoa and Greater Kumasi, the president has announced an end to the lockdown.
According to the President, this is to give government the opportunity to try to contain the spread of the virus, scale-up effectively the tracing of persons who had come into contact with infected persons, test them for the virus and quarantine those who tested positive and isolate them for treatment.
This was announced by President during his live televised address to the nation today, Sunday, April 19, 2020.
Although the lifting of the restrictions may come as a reprieve to the many whose livelihoods may have been hit hard following the imposition, access to some major sectors remains restricted.
Gabby Otchere Darko and Sammy Gyamfi