The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has emphatically disposed into the bin a video purporting to be President Akufo-Addo collecting a $40,000 bribe.
The NPP made a strong case that the video, which was beingcirculated by their opponent, National Democratic Congress (NDC), was fake and only meant to forcibly dent the image of President Akufo-Addo as being corrupt.
Yesterday, the Deputy 2020 Campaign Manager for the NPP, Dr Mustapha Hamid, addressed a news conference in Accra to rubbish the video, while producing what he said was the original.
The media personnel who were present at the presser were shown both the said fake and original videos, which brought to bear the facts of the matter.
Interestingly, both parties claimed their video was the original, and that the other party had doctored portions to make a case for themselves.
Though the videos being circulated by the NDC as the original, and that of the NPP which they also claim is the original, showed the same personalities, the conversations were different.
Whereas the NDC video spoke of protection for an appointee, the NPP’s spoke of assisting the electioneering campaign of Akufo-Addo. The locations of both videos were the same – Akufo-Addo’s private residence.
Both videos have Ambassador Baffour Adjei Bawuah, Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States of America, a ladywho introduced herself as HajiaFawzi, and a man whose face was not captured in the NDC video but appeared in that of the NPP.
The NDC video begins with the same introduction as that of the NPP, but the discussion changes swiftly thereafter. A man is heard saying Alhaji Abass, Director of Urban Roads, had sent them to plead with Akufo-Addo not to sack him, and then adds that Alhaji Abass gave them the money to be given to the President to protect him.
In both videos, Akufo-Addo, after receiving the brown envelope, was seen taking his pen and requesting a name to be attributed to the parcel, to which the lady mentioned HajiaFawzia.
The man was heard saying in the NDC video that Alhaji Abass had been advised by some people to come and see you with money. He said Alhaji Abass did not have much except that $40,000. He stated Alhaji Abass, through the delegation, was pleading with Akufo-Addo not to remove him from office.
There is a man’s voice over the video the NDC showed at their press conference yesterday.
In the NDC video, Ambassador Bawuah stands to handover the brown envelope purporting to be the $40,000, which Akufo-Addo attempts to receive, but the hand of the Ambassador turns to the woman, and later back to Akufo-Addo.
However, the other video from the NPP showedthe contrary. The Ambassador’s hand went directly to Akufo-Addo and he received the envelope at once.
The unseen man, whose presence was by his voice, was now heard discussing how they could support the electioneering campaign. He had been told by the Fawzia lady to speak on her behalf, when the Ambassador asked her to speak to Akufo-Addo.
While asking the man he said was his brother to speak for her, Fawzia told Akufo-Addo she had been supporting the party, but it appeared they had landed in wrong hands.
Prior to that, Ambassador Bawuah had said Fawziahad brought someT-shirts for the campaign which were in their car, the reason he had led her to meet him, Akufo-Addo.
The NPP video also showed a sample of the T-shirt with the inscription, ‘Arise For Change 2016’, a campaign slogan of the NPP.
Unlike the NDC video, that of the NPP had a no voiceover, a reason the latter was confident the former’s video was fake.
In the NDC video, you do not hear Ambassador Bawuah talking about T-shirts after introducing Fawzia, but the NPP video showed that he introduced the woman and said she had come to donate to the campaign, before asking her to speak, who then said the brother brought her, so she would like him to speak.
Also, in the NPP video, the face of the man who was filming secretly was captured through the reflection of the vehicle in which he went to pick some of the T-shirts to present to Akufo-Addo. Again, his face showed for the second time, after the meeting with Akufo-Addo, before the video ended. Those footages were not in the NDC video.
Concluding the address to the media, Dr Mustapha Hamid said: “And the NDC knows that it has lost the election,so, it is resorting to throwing in fake videos alleging corruption on the part of the President. It will not wash. You take old videos of a campaign donation and distort it seeking to make it look like a recent video? Come on! Is the NDC so incompetent even at faking things?”
He continued: “And listen to the spurious explanation- that the President took a bribe of 40,000 dollars? (¢160,000 in 2016 terms?) Pathetic souls! Ladies and gentlemen of the media, fellow Ghanaians, we should teach the NDC that decency and ethical behaviour are very much a part of politics. Indeed, politicians, more than everybody else, should be ethical. Governance is serious business. When unethical people like those in the NDC assume the governance of a country, then what happened to Ghana pre-2016 is what happens. You have a demoralised society, collapsed businesses, broken financial sector, collapsed educational system, and a ruined economy.We shall not go back. We shall move forward. Vote Akufo-Addo for President to do more for you. Vote number one on the ballot.”
In a related development, the Managing Editor of the New Crusading Guide Newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr, shot down the video of the NDC while discussing it on Peace FM’s ‘Kokrokoo’ yesterday.
Kweku Baako disclosed that the person who recorded the President was called Salis Yakubu and is the owner of the SalisNewspaper, the paper which first published the story on the video.
Kweku Baakonoted that the story had been skewed to look like the money presentation was made recently.
He maintained, however, that it was done in 2016, prior to the general elections, when PresidentAkufo-Addo was then a candidate of theNPP.
Government, on the other hand, says it had noted without much surprise, a desperate attempt by the NDC to forcibly accuse President Akufo-Addo of bribery.
The Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who signed the statement, said “the people of Ghana are discerning and will not be swayed by obvious fabrications designed by persons who always seek to bring the name of the Republic into disrepute and sully its image amongst the comity of nations.”
The post Akufo-Addo ‘bribe’ video in NDC hands is fake -NPP appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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