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- Plans to use �Limping man� to divert Woyome attention. A plot by President Mills and his ruling National Democratic Congress to use the arrest of a known NDC financier in the Tema area, Christian Asem Darkeh, aka Limping man, as a diversionary tactic from the GH�51 million Woyome and other emerging judgement debt scandals has been exposed. Credible information gathered by the New Statesman has shown that an offer has been made to the �limping man� to become a prosecution witness with his job being to implicate the New Patriotic Party and its members in the infamous MV Benjamin saga. Also to be implicated, according to our sources within the security agencies, are journalists. The Limping Man was reportedly arrested on February 2, 2012. However, our checks show that the Interior Ministry has been aware of his whereabouts as far back as November 2011, if not earlier. There is suspicion within NACOB that the timing of the arrest of the known NDC financier, who has been a fugitive on the run for the past six years, was politically motivated. As one sceptic commented, "It all looks like a gargantuan diversion". Government has been under tremendous pressure since December, with the Woyome scandal opening a Pandora Box of 642 million judgment debts, full of never-ending scandalous payments. Top government strategists had calculated that by March, the nation would have moved. However, current events, with focus shifting to the bigger 38 million euro Waterville undeserved payment, another construction firm, CP's 94 million euro settlement and many more, Government had been desperately looking for a story with news sustaining value to shift focus from the ruling party. The arrest of the man suspected to be behind the alleged shipment of 77 parcels of cocaine in 2006 is being seen as the needed diversion. Indeed, it has been the leading propagandists of the ruling party, the Communications Director at the Castle and the Propaganda Secretary at the party headquarters, who have been leading in releasing information to the public on the arrest of the Limping Man. The �limping man� was �singing like a canary�, said Koku Anyidoho, Communications Director at the Presidency, adding that some big men would be arrested so they should not leave the country -- a very weird way to treat criminal intelligence. Richard Quashigah, the NDC Propaganda Secretary, has gone as far as to name a leading NPP politician as a suspect. He said in an interview with Okay FM last Friday, that the Limping Man had named NPP MP for Assin North, Kennedy Agyapong, as knowing �something about the disappearance of the 77 parcels of cocaine� allegedly on board the MV Benjamin. The MP, incidentally, has been the leading crusader, who first brought the Woyome matter to the public and has been consistent in bringing out more damning facts. Last week, he brandished documents, purporting to contain details of government officials who were paid money from Alfred Woyome's bank account. Alfred Woyome is in police custody for defrauding the state of 52 million Ghana Cedis in conspiracy with state officials, through judgment debt claims. Mr Agyapong has accused the President of being behind these multi-million dollar illegal payments and has called for the arrest and prosecution of the Finance Minister, former Attorney General, and the dismissal of the Chief of Staff, his deputy and the Deputy Attorney General. The President had to abandon a state of the nation pledge in 2011 to set up a commission to enquire into the MV Benjamin. Many critics then dismissed it as a political gimmick fated to yield no meaningful results. However, a senior Castle source has told the New Statesman that Koku Anyidoho is convinced that their biggest campaign trump card is this cocaine matter and has, accordingly instructed party communicators to shift attention on that. "Everything is being done, at all cost, to ensure the NPP is implicated in this matter," a worried source at the Narcotics Control Board told the New Statesman. Further investigations carried out by this paper have revealed that the �Limping Man� was walking free in Tema, in the full glare and knowledge of authorities. Available information also shows that some of these functionaries attended parties of Asem Darkeh during the Christmas festivities. Just as the ill-conceived February 17 2011 State of the Nation promise by President Mills to set up a presidential enquiry to look into the MV Benjamin saga in the hope of diverting public attention from other more pressing social issues at the time, the NDC is hoping to win the 2012 elections by repeating its 2008 campaign strategy of tagging the New Patriotic Party with cocaine by using the �Limping Man�. In his State of the Nation Address, President Mills said, �I have decided that a full scale investigation into the disappearance of cocaine from the Police vault as well as the 77 parcels of cocaine which entered Ghana's territorial waters aboard the MV Benjamin vessel and mysteriously got missing should be re-opened. I do this in the knowledge that administrative enquiries were conducted into both cases. The twist however is that the missing cocaine was not found and the culprits were not identified. With a Presidential Commission of Enquiry, we hope to be able to do both.� Critics immediately pointed out the obvious errors in the law professor's appreciation of the case. Seven persons were convicted and handed a total of 125-years in prison. Four police officers were charged, prosecuted, convicted and jailed for the roles they played in the case. The Court of Appeal also ruled in the Tagor case that there was no evidence of 77 parcels of drugs being on MV Benjamin, the ship that sailed from South America through our shores in 2006.