National Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) has disclosed that he helped rescue former Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey from Liberia during the country's civil war in the 1990s but was given a raw deal when the tide turned.  

Kofi Portuphy, then Director of the then National Mobilization Programme (NMP), claims he personally played a major role in helping to snatch Jake and his wife from the claws of death and got them seats in the last Ghana Airways flight that left Liberia with Ghanaian refugees in February 1990.  

“Jake would have been dead by now if I did not rescue him with the help of ECOMOG soldiers because Charles Taylor attacked his [Jake] hideout and killed all the people there after I helped him escape,” he added.  

Kofi Portuphy made the disclosure on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme during a one- on-one interview with show host, Kojo Asare Baffour Acheampong (KABA) Wednesday while discussing his decision to vie for the chairmanship position in the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC).  

He said the former NPP Chairman, then 'penniless', worked in his office registering refugees to fend for his [Jake] family.   This notwithstanding, Kofi Portuphy said when the NPP came to power in 2001, it was the same ‘ungrateful’ Obetsebi-Lamptey, then Chief of Staff, who ordered him out of his NADMO office.  

“It is rather amazing that after all the sacrifices when NPP came to power Jake came to sack me from my office,” he stated.  

Citing his rescue mission of Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey as his commitment to sacrifice for humanity “irrespective of who you are”, Mr. Portuphy said he will give of his best to see the NDC succeed.   “For 32 years I have done humanitarian work in this country; my work is to sacrifice for the party because NDC is the party by the people and for the people”.  

He is confident of winning the Chairmanship slot because “having conducted some polls, I have straightened the rough edges and people understand the need for change”.   Kofi Portuphy said his vision is to see the NDC as a formidable party using its social democratic  principles to improve the lives of Ghanaians.