‘I’m desperate to find cure for Ghana’s problems’-Nunoo-Mensah joins idol-breaking pastor

A former National Security Advisor, Brigadier Joseph Nunoo-Mensah (rtd), has joined the Ghana Union Movement (GUM), a new political party led by idol-breaking-pastor Rev Kwabena Andrews.

The former Chief of Defence staff says he left from the country’s main opposition, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to join the relatively unknown political party because “I don’t like what I’m seeing in Ghana today mainly with the two main political parties, the NDC and the NPP.”

“Ghana has got so many problems but they don’t seem to be tackling the problems. They are in power to manage their own business and Ghana is almost burning.

“So I’m desperate to find a cure. When you walk on our streets, you find so many young people on our streets. I was in Makola to buy something, there was chaos and filth, and you see these young people there. I ask myself what is the future of these young people.”

Political hopping

Photo: Brigadier Joseph Nunoo-Mensah in his hey days

However, it is not the first time the former senior military office went party hopping.

He was the Campaign Manager of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the New Patriotic Party(NPP)Presidential primaries in 1998 ahead of the 2000 elections.

When his candidate failed to clinch the ticket that eventually made J.A Kufuor President from 2001 to 2009, he went on a long political hiatus until J.E.A Mills became President.

Mills made him his  National Security Adviser.

Going from a retired army officer to a clairvoyant, the octogenarian said, “Looking into the future in a crystal ball, I see only hell for this young people. What is going to happen to Ghana when I’m gone and I’ll go. I’m not going to be here forever.”

But while he is alive, he wants to team up with Rev. Andrews, whose claim to fame had been breaking down idols of his new converts to the Christian faith.

“So I heard about this Rev …and went to see him about seven months ago. I went to his church one Sunday with a friend to find out what he was talking about,” he recalled.

He said the televangelist “had something I was looking for, a future for our country,” but fell short of stating the attributes of the GUM leader whose party was registered in 2019.

“When I went to meet him, he was preaching something that is close to my dream,” he said.

He said his dream was  to see a country with factories littered everywhere as was the case of the years of Nkrumah.

“That vision, I don’t see any of the two parties achieving it,” he explained in reference to the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party.

We’re not joking

Ghana’s small parties have a history of performing abysmally in tbe country’s elections since 1992, and many see Brigadier-General Nunoo-Mensah move as a joke, because GUM cannot make any impact in 2020.

But the man who was retired as CDS in 1979 by the Limann administration said his alliance with the minister of the gospel is a transformational agenda.

“You think it is a big joke. When Jesus came to the world, his father was a carpenter. It was a big joke, today, we’re worshipping him. Today, people are not sleeping. When Nkrumah came, he was a big joke. What didn’t we hear about Nkrumah, yet what Nkrumah has done for Ghana, nobody has done a 10^th,” he said.

Asked if he ever held an NDC party card, he said he didn’t need one to serve the country.

“I joined President Mills. I didn’t have an NDC card. You don’t have to be an NDC man to serve Ghana. We are patriots. I learnt from Nkrumah. When he came I 15 in the boarding school. The passion he had is what I see in this pastor.

He insisted he had not been part of the Mahama administration

“I joined the NDC to serve President Mills. He was a very good man. He left us and Mahama took over and began to change everything that President Mills had done. It is like you setting up a football team and leaving it to build a new team.  That is what destroyed the NDC.

Controversies 

Brigadier-General Nunoo-Mensah has often not been far from controversy.

In 2013 ,while serving as Mahama’s National Security adviser, Brigadier-General Nunoo-Mensah (Rtd.) strongly condemned the increasing number of industrial actions on the country’s labour front.

According to him, workers could not be allowed to embark on strike when their salaries had been increased several times under the single spine pay structure.

“If you don’t want the job, Ghana is not a police state. Take your passports and get out of this country and don’t destroy the country for us; if you can’t sacrifice like what some of us have done, then get out. If the Kitchen is too hot for you, get out,” he said.

In February 2017, a month after President Akufo-Addo assumed office, the ‘old soldier ‘said the man whose campaign he once managed “needs people like me” to help him succeed in building Ghana.

“I want to approach many ministers today, I’ve got ideas about agriculture, ideas about security, ideas about many issues, but to get the minister to talk to you, it’s difficult.

“I have no problem with Akufo-Addo, I’ve been with NPP and I know the hardliners there, what they didn’t want – they think that when you go near the areas of power, you are going to ask for a favour, I’ve never asked for a favour in my entire life … I don’t ask for favours … I don’t need favours from anybody,” he told TV3.