Ms Otiko Afisa Djaba has denied ever desiring to marry former President John Mahama as claimed by one Mahama Haruna on social media a few months ago.
“It was one of the most ridiculous and ludicrous statements from a crazy guy called Mahama Haruna,” the Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister said in an interview with Kwadwo Asare-Barfour Acheampong (KABA) on Wednesday, 8 March.
“He is my brother, there will be no incest in this relationship,” she insisted.
Haruna Mahama had claimed in his piece that Ms Djaba was unrelenting in her attacks on Mr Mahama because the former president “rejected” an arranged marriage between him and her.
Below is exactly what Mr Mahama Haruna wrote on Facebook:
Many are surprised about Otiko Afisah Djaba’s incessant attacks on President Mahama. I am not surprised because I know the reason for Otiko’s tantrums against President Mahama since she became an NPP member in 2008.
It is simple! President John Dramani rejected an ARRANGED FAMILY MARRIAGE* between him and Otiko Afisa Djaba many years ago.
President Mahama’s father (E. A. Mahama) and Otiko’s mother (Miss Siata) are brother and sister and were very close especially since they were the few educated elite from Bole in the British colonial days with President Mahama’s father becoming the first MP for Bole in 1954 and subsequently becoming a Minister under Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s government. EA Mahama’s sister (Miss Siata) was an accomplished educationist well known and popular at Bole. EA Mahama and Miss Siata adored each other so much that they build their houses near each other at Bole.
The fact is Otiko is a product of the friendship between President Mahama’s father (E.A. Mahama) and Otiko’s father (Henry Djaba). They were not only bossom friends but kin pins of Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP government. Henry Djaba decided to con the sister of his friend E.A. Mahama with Otiko as the product of the relationship.
President Mahama and Otiko are cousins. By Gonja custom cousins, that is a male child and female child of brother and sister respectively can marry and so former President Mahama could marry Otiko. In Gonja most marriages are contracted this way.
Indeed there was to be an arranged marriage between a very handsome, humble and “bookworm” President Mahama (long before he became MP for Bole-Bamboi) and Otiko which never worked out because President Mahama was not interested!!
Former President Mahama saw Otiko as an abrasive, arrogant and a “too known” lady he could not control. President Mahama later married his wife Lordina Mahama, who was very beautiful, curvy with an excellent back.
Since then Otiko has not forgiven President Mahama. She later decided to join the NPP just to have her pound of flesh on someone she really loved and wanted to marry. Perhaps her attacks and her arrogant refusal to apologise for insults he rained on former President Mahama in the past are because she is jealous.
However, Ms Djaba, in her response on Asempa FM said: “Haruna Mahama is a liar, there is no such tradition among Gonjas. I don’t know what kind of Gonja he is.”
She said: “President Mahama is my brother. I’ll respect him till the day I die. We have different ideologies; it doesn’t mean that I don’t respect him. His father and my mother’s father (maternal grandfather) were cousins, they shared a common grandmother. My mother met my father in Grandfather EA Mahama’s house, so, it’s a very close relationship. …I went into exile with my father when I was 16 years old at the same time that Grandfather EA Mahama was also in exile, so, at what point did my father and Grandfather EA Mahama arrange the so-called marriage? It is not possible, we are too close with blood for that to happen. Haruna is just playing mischief.”
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