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| CEO of Menzgold, Nana Appiah Mensah [NAM1] |
If I would not be
(mis)taken for exaggeration, I would have said that almost every blessed day I
get no less than two people asking me the same questions I have been asked
repeatedly.
“Are you NAM1? Is he
your brother?” people whom I never knew before would just ask me on my first
time meeting them. On January 23, 2019, I passed through the domestic terminal
of the Kotoka International Airport [KIA] as I checked in for a flight en route
Tamale in the Northern Region. One of the security personnel at the check-in
point signaled that I dropped in a bowl my cell phones, wallet and such belongings
for screening. I obliged.
Then, a man of about
38-years old – being one of the security officials – would engage me even after
they were done searching me.
“Are you NAM1?” he
asked.
“No, boss,” I replied
him.
“Wow! Do you relate
him? Your surname is even Mensah?” he probed further.
I had told him that the
Chief Executive Officer of the gold dealership firm, Menzgold, Nana Appiah
Mensah [popularly known as NAM1] was not somebody I had ever met before let
alone being my relative.
Then, again, jokingly,
he said with a bit of seriousness in his voice that if I had landed from an
international flight at the KIA, he would have arrested me because – for him –
I was NAM1. Can you imagine?
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| Solomon Mensah has a resemblance to Nana Appiah Mensah |
To my surprise, on my
second time using the domestic terminal at the KIA for another trip to Tamale, an
official at the airline Passion Air –
a lady – said to me she found it difficult asking me on my first flight if I
were NAM1. I was not surprised. As I have alluded to, I get this kind of
question and interrogation daily. On this same second time of going to Tamale,
on my return to Accra, another official at Passion Air’s desk at the Tamale
Airport named Prince Curls Wilson said to me he wanted to ask me a question,
after he had checked my pass.
“Sir, sorry oo, I
wanted to ask you something on the last time you used the [Tamale] Airport but
I could not gather the courage to do so. Please, are you NAM1 or do you relate
him?”
Mr. Wilson later would
tell me that NAM1 used to travel to Tamale which got him a bit closer to him [NAM1].
They share a kind of working relations. Yet, seeing me, he could not
differentiate between his friend and me.
In May 2019, I went to
the then Accra Polytechnic now Accra Technical University’s printing pool. I
was there to print a manuscript. Following the numerous questions on my resemblance
with NAM1, I now would walk carrying my 3FM/TV3
ID card on me and, indeed, I had it when I went to the Accra Technical
University that day.
“Hey! Who are those
owed by NAM1? Come for your money oo he is here at long last,” a lady – whose
printing shop I had entered – shouted so loud that I thought she spoke through
a megaphone. This was a young lady I never knew before.
That took me about two
minutes virtually begging the lady that I am not the Menzgold CEO and that she
was putting my life in danger considering that hundreds of students were
around.
Dear NAM1, if I mean to
recount every single encounter I have had with Ghanaians mistaken me for you, I
guess I would need a full month to do so. Severally, I have been warned and
admonished by friends to be careful – especially when in town – so people do
not pounce on me. Hence, my carrying of my workplace’s ID card in my pocket
even to church, at times.
Of a truth, at a point
in time, the pressure of a possible attack on me was so much that I thought of
reporting myself to the police so – perhaps – they issued a disclaimer on my behalf.
On Wednesday, July 17,
2019, a group calling itself Aggrieved Customers of Menzgold held a press
conference. They had one main thing to say, they need their locked up
investments refunded to them.
“We want to hear from
NAM1, we have supported him all this while and it is time we hear from him…we
want to demand from the CID that we want to meet Nana Appiah Mensah in person.
Wherever he is, he needs to address us as leaders of Menzgold customers.
“If it is not a
deliberate attempt on the part of the government to shield and protect Nana
Appiah Mensah to loot and create and share our investments, then this is the
time that the government should be transparent…and let us know what is
happening with our investments,” the customers fumed as reported by the starrfm.com.gh.
‘My brother, NAM1,’ I
must say it is refreshing seeing you return to Ghana. Good name, the old adage
says, is better than riches and for that you must endeavor to save yourself the
tag of defrauding your clients. Ironically, I also get people asking me the
question, “So, when are you paying your clients?”
We understand that you
won your case in Dubai. That is fine. I would entreat you to, as a matter of
urgency, pay your clients with whatever money you got from Dubai. Even if it
means selling some properties you have to add up to the settlement of your
debt, I think it will go a long way to clear your name.
The good news, however,
is that some of your clients still believe Menzgold was and is never a Ponzi
scheme. They rather say, it is government who is to blame for their woes. This
suggests that you have an appreciable level of sympathy and trust from a
section of the public. If you are able to defray your debt, I think, history
will remember you as the man who supposedly fell from grace to grass and rose
up again with the growing speed of the Chinese bamboo tree.
And when this happens,
you would not only save yourself but people like me. In my neighbourhood –
somewhere in Accra – a woman who sells foodstuffs now looks at me with the
corners of her eyes whenever I go to buy from her.
NAM1, when the Ghana
Police Service declared you wanted and the media splashed your photos, this
woman had a copy of an edition of the Daily Graphic at her shop. You were on
the front page of the paper and she asked me why I was all over even in the
newspapers. Fortunately, she could not read the Daily Graphic so she did not
understand what the issue was. But, sadly, after probably watching the Akan
speaking television stations, she now [till date] says I am the one in the news
and that people need their monies.
It has been but God’s
grace that I am not hurt by any of your aggrieved customers in your long
absence. The ball is fully in your court now and Operation Calm Hearts must begin now!
The
writer is a broadcast journalist with Media General (TV3/3FM). Views expressed
here are solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his
organisation.
Email:
nehusthan@yahoo.com
Twitter:
@aniwaba
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