<<Print>>Former human rights advocate, now Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister, Nana Oye Lithur, seems to be enjoying the luxury and pleasure that being in government presents as she threw a big birthday party last Saturday.
That was during her 50th birthday anniversary celebration.
The once plump minister held the plush birthday party at the prized Labadi Beach Hotel with a tall list of friends and well-wishers in attendance.
In a video which has since gone viral on various social media platforms including Facebook and WhatsApp, Nana Oye Lithur, wife of Tony Lithur, the president’s lawyer in the infamous 2012 election petition hearing at the Supreme Court, was seen in a sparkling sleeveless apparel happily dancing her heart out to Shatta Wale’s latest hit song, Kakai, alongside two ladies in a choreographic style.
She seemed to have taken a lot of time off her busy schedule as a substantive minister to rehearse the dance with the two ladies, as she held a microphone and mimicked the song amidst cheers from family and friends.
Some could not hide their joy seeing 50-year-old Oye Lithur throwing her waist and doing what teenagers do as she took wild steps (boogie woogie) while some of her friends sprayed her with cash.
The guest list was said to have included the Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Dzifa Gomashie and Nana Adwoa Awindor of ‘Greetings from Abroad’ fame. Some ministers turned down the invitation or did not show up because of the ostentation associated with it.
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The climax of the event was the cutting of a five-tier suspended cake.
Until her appointment as minister, Oye Lithur was a strong human rights advocate and head of the local chapter of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) in Ghana. She later formed her own NGO – Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC).
She was very vociferous during the era of the erstwhile Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, especially on the issue of the murder of some Ghanaians by Yahaya Jammeh’s inhuman government in The Gambia.
Not too long ago, a picture of the minister surfaced on social media in which she was seen at a function happily dancing barefooted while a policeman in uniform, who is believed to be her officially assigned bodyguard, held her shoes.
This attracted widespread condemnation, with most people asking why and how the minister would make a man who was supposed to be providing her with security to carry her shoes around.
This is the second time in two years that the footage of a minister’s plush birthday bash has become public.
Sometime in 2014, the Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Louisa Hannah Bissiw, had a similar bash at the premises of the Tema Development Corporation (TDC) where her husband, one Dr Francis Kpormego, a Jamaica-based medical doctor, was said to have given her a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado as a birthday gift.