Dr. Mustapha Hamid
The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has exposed the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for using a video taken in 2016 and doctored to create the impression that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has taken a bribe in office.
The party said the video, captured during a donation made by a lady sympathizer of the party which took place in October 2016 when the then candidate Akufo-Addo was leading the NPP into the general election, had been spliced by the NDC to make things look like Nana Akufo-Addo had taken bribe as President.
At a press conference yesterday, the Minister of Zongo and Inner Cities who is also a Deputy Campaign Manager for the NPP, Dr. Mustapha Hamid, said the doctoring of the video was so incompetently done which showed how incompetent the NDC and its leaders had been.
He said the money involved in the donation was GH¢40,000 and not $40,000 which came with 2016 party T-shirts with the inscription ‘Arise for Change’.
According to him, the doctored video was thrown into the public domain with just few days to go to the polls just to equalize the fact that former President John Mahama who is also the Presidential Candidate of the NDC took bribes personally when he was the President of the country.
He said this new video to equalize bribe-taking showed how desperate the NDC was to win power even though it was very much aware that it would suffer another heavy defeat at the polls.
He said the video could never change the fate of the NDC in next week’s elections.
He also warned that media outlets that showed the doctored video would be taken to court for defaming the hard earned reputation of the President.
“President Akufo-Addo is incorruptible and can never stoop so low to take a bribe of GH¢40,000 as a President who has everything at his disposal,” he fired.
More Revelation
Veteran journalist Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr., Managing Editor of New Crusading, spoke on the issue on ‘Peace FM’ in Accra yesterday and said the person that did the secret recording once worked with his protégé, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, the popular investigative journalist who owned private investigative firm, Tiger Eye PI.
“This gentleman, Salis Yakubu Achiwulor, he is the guy behind the Salis newspaper. He is the guy who did the secret recording of candidate Akufo-Addo. I know that for a fact,” he said.
“He is a mercenary of the highest order. He does these things and he sells them. He got into the NPP. The tape has been twisted, doctored!” he said.
Original Video
“This boy did the recording. Unfortunately for him, we have the original. So he decided to do the fake one in order to collect money from some people; and he collected money from people who didn’t know. There were people in the party who out of panic began dealing with him,” he said, adding, “He has done series of documentaries on different things but linked to the so-called bribery.”
Mr. Baako said “he calls candidate Akufo-Addo, your excellency. Those are all insertions. They were never part of the original,” adding that “the original is longer than the fake one and the NDC communicators are saying it is rather the fake which is the original.”
He added that “this gentleman made a mistake when he was recording so his face appeared. When he said he was going to his car to bring t-shirts, his face showed. The t-shirt is labelled ‘Arise for Change’. President Akufo-Addo is campaigning for change, ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous!”
“This happened in October 2016. Akufo-Addo referred to a chief called Bismark who had recently been enskinned. He was enskinned August 2016. They were in Akufo-Addo’s Nima residence in October; that was why he made the point about the new chief. You cannot take away the content analysis timelines.
He said, “The boy did a voice over on the tape. He inserts in the question of Alhaji Abass’ job security of tenure to make it look like it was because of that issue that they went to see Nana Akufo-Addo.
“The original tape says GH¢40,000 now the voice over says $40,000. And then brings in the Alhaji’s job security which was not part of what was discussed at that place except to introduce the woman as the wife of the former Roads Director.”
Campaign Financing
“The whole thing happened while Akufo-Addo was not the President. He was a candidate. It happened in October 2016. If we have to discuss party campaign financing then that is a different story. We can discuss it. Didn’t you hear candidate Akufo-Addo ask for the name of the donor? He is taking a bribe and recording it in his notebook. Who takes bribe and records?
“When you want to talk about political party financing you can do it, but when you talk of a sitting President taking bribe in order to secure somebody’s job security, you are talking nonsense. To be honest with you, it is blank bullets that have been fired by political desperados.
“The tape the boy has done is fake. There were people who were all part of that thing. It was 2016 secret recording of candidate Akufo-Addo. That is why the t-shirt in the video is ‘Arise for change’. The gentleman is also captured on the original tape. It is from political desperados doing this at the eleventh hour but unfortunately for them they fired blank bullets,” he said.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr