The Northern Regional organiser of the National Disaster Management Organisation, (NADMO), Alhaji Mahama Adbulai Silimboma, Saturday made a surprise, live appearance at the studios of Radio Gold moments after he was alleged to have flown out of town to participate in this year’s annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Samuel Abu Jinapor, spokesperson for New Patriotic Party flagbearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, was a panel member for Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji programme that discussed the Amina Mohammed “armed robbery and mass rape” story and suggested that for him, other issues that affected the people’s wellbeing were more important than spending time on alleged mass rape. He had among other things, said that the government’s response to the flood situation in the Northern Region was inefficient and ineffective because the regional coordinator of NADMO instead of staying in the country to coordinate more relief efforts had rather chosen to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the annual Hajj. According to Abu Jinapor, information available to him indicated that Silimboma was in Saudi Arabia at the expense of coordinating relief items for flood victims in the region and contested claims by Alhassan Suhini, programme host, that Silimboma might be travelling to Mecca but as at the time of the programme he was still in Ghana. Moments after the comments however, Alhaji Silimboma popped up in the studio to, as he put it, show himself physically that what Abu Jinapor was saying was not true. Alhaji Silimboma, who is also northern regional organiser of the NDC, said he was in Accra to liaise with his national NADMO coordinator to organise more relief items for the thousands of flood victims in the Northern Region because more items were required and had taken the opportunity to visit the Hajj Village in Accra to see to the welfare of people from his region who were embarking on the hajj and was on his way back to the Northern Region when he heard Abu Jinapor’s story and decided to show up and present himself. He also took the opportunity to invite Abu Jinapor to 'visit home' regularly to join in efforts to assuage the plight of the people and not to politicise issues, saying there were serious efforts to address the needs of the people. Following the intervention, Abu Jinapor apologized to Alhaji Silimboma, explaining that information he had received “from the ground” had turned out to be untrue and so he was apologizing but only on the grounds that he was taking Silimboma’s claims as the truth, maintaining though that the government’s response to the relief needs of the flood victims had been poor. Story by Isaac Yeboah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana