In the wake of the recent passing of Member of Parliament (MP) for Ejisu and Deputy Minister for Finance, John Kumah and the subsequent claims of possible poisoning brought up by media personalities, Captain Smart and Oheneba Asiedu, The Independent Ghana has chanced on a 2007 report by The Daily Guide Newspaper.
The report delves into the unsettling claims allegedly made by the late New Patriotic Party (NPP) stalwart Hawa Yakubu, who is reported to have confided in close associates that she had been poisoned, right before her demise.
Read the full report published by The Daily Guide Newspaper and circulated on ghanaweb.com, myjoyonline.com, and modernghana.com on Thursday, 22 March 2007.
A number of persons have disclosed that the late Madam Hawa Yakubu had told them before her death that she had been poisoned through ‘someone in her house but said she would recover.
According to the Greater Accra Regional Youth Organiser of the New Patriotic Party, Alhaji Yusif Ahmed, who hailed from the same Busanga ethnic group with the late leading member of the ruling party, “she spoke to me on 1st of March this year from London and told me that she had been poisoned. She therefore told me to organize prayers for her recovery.”
Continuing, he said, “The woman’s voice sounded as though she was responding to treatment. Her voice was a contrast to what I heard at the Maple Hotel sometime ago when she came there for a function.”
During the meeting at the Maple Hotel, he said the woman told him the same thing, having been poisoned.
Alhaji Yusif Ahmed, who is very close to the late politician’s family, disclosed that her son, Derrick Yakubu was due to leave for London yesterday to arrange for the return of his mother’s remains to Ghana.
The Youth Organiser said she bore four children, but one died earlier, with the surviving ones being Derrick, Amanda, and Dieudonne.
The Castle Correspondent of Daily Guide, Shiela Sackey who interviewed Hawa Yakubu on April 11, 2006 for her column, “Sheila’s Women”, also recalled how the former Bawku Central MP told her that she had been poisoned.
“She told me that it was off-record and the disclosure preceded the main interview she granted me. That was the time she told me that it was likely that she would contest the NPP Presidential flagbearship.
“She looked frail and did not even want me to take a picture of her because of her state,” Shiela said.
In another disclosure, a second-year student of the African Institute of Journalism and Communication, Abdul Karim Nantogmah said that “six months ago, I went to Madam Hawa Yakubu’s house at East Legon which is close to Dr Andani’s residence (the Sanerigu Chief). She was my mentor as she assisted me financially,” he said.
“When I went to her in the company of my junior brother, we were told that she was not in but when I sent my ID card through a house help in the house, she let me in.
“She took me to a portion of the house where she sat down to eat a meal of yam and plantain as her hair was being plaited,” he said.
Nantogmah said Madam Hawa Yakubu told him “My son, you would have come to meet your mother dead”.
Explaining, she told him that after taking her super that evening she felt an unusual taste in her mouth and started to vomit.
She said poison had been put in her food by one of her house helps, according to Nantogmah, who said when he probed her further, she only said it was from within but refused to get beyond that.
A Chinese doctor was called in to offer an initial treatment and he recommended that she be sent to abroad for further treatment.
“During the visit I saw Alhassan of TV Africa and Mr Larry, the Upper East Chairman of the NPP,” Nantogmah added.
On the day of her death, Napoleon Abdullai of the Foundation for Security and Development in Africa who was her junior at the Navorongo Secondary School and called from Liberia to ascertain the veracity of the news, said, “The woman is very much respected in Liberia and she took part on the campaign of President Sirleaf Johnson. I am going to call the Presidential aide and break the news to him.”
Sources close to the hospital have pointed at cancer as the cause of her death.
Madam Hawa Yakubu died in a London Hospital after being indisposed for a long time.
About two months ago, rumors hit town that she had died but after a few checks, it was established that it was not true.
Those who recalled when she told them she was poisoned are unflinching in their position that indeed this woman whom they adored immensely did not die through natural causes.
Below are screenshots of the reports on ghanaweb.com, myjoyonline.com, and modernghana.com
