Akufo-Addo must speak on bribery scandal – NDC

The National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has said President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo must speak on the accusation that he took a bribe of GH¢40,000.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Friday, December 4, Sammy Gyamfi said communicators of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) should not be speaking on behalf of the president on this matter.

“President Nana Add Dankwa Akufo-Addo must speak. Let him speak just like John Mahama spoke on the Airbus scandal,” he said.

His comments come on the heels of a video making rounds on social media, showing President Akufo-Addo receiving a $40,000 “donation” – said to be bribe – from a man and a woman.

The NDC has called out the president to come clean and explain the circumstances under which the money was received in his presidential office.

The party’s Member of Parliament for Ketu South Constituency, Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey, thinks the president cannot absolve himself from bribery even if it demands consulting traditional deities.

But Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah reacted to the allegations and said it is only characteristic of the NDC to rely on “waging a campaign of lies, fake news and fabrications [and] the opposition candidate and his party have now sponsored the doctoring of this video and superimposed it with new voices to create the false impression that it is a post-2016 event showing the President receiving bribe”.

“Whilst we are not surprised by the new low by the opposition candidate and his party, we remind Ghanaians that they should expect more of such falsehoods and fabrications in the days leading up to the election.”

The statement perceives the Mahama campaign as failed, therefore resorting to fake news and fabrications as well as an amendment of his earlier promises as the only hope to salvage his defeat in the hands of President Akufo-Addo.

“We are not disappointed that Mr Mahama and the current NDC leadership will stoop so low with obvious fabrications which they hope can change the minds of Ghanaians. It is and will always be their stock-in-trade.”

But Sammy Gyamfi said the likes of Mr Oppong Nkrumah should not be speaking for the president, who cannot absolve himself from the content of the video, he stressed.