Mahama’s dismissal of allegations against Asantehene timely - Karbo

Anthony Karbo, Former National Youth Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has commended President John Dramani Mahama for condemning the bribery allegations levelled against Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

The New Free Press newspaper recently published a report which courted controversy on the airwaves that the Asantehene allegedly brokered a bribery deal between President Mahama and two of the nine Justices that sat on the 2012 election petition case.

Chiefs at Manhyia Palace in the Ashanti Region expressed disgust over the report and threatened to lodge a formal complaint with the National Media Commission (NMC) to haul the editor and publisher of the publication to retract the “malicious allegations”.

President John Mahama, addressing a congregation at the Cedar Mountain Chapel in Accra on Sunday, also condemned the media ‘fabrication’, saying “in the last few weeks, some of the things that have been said about the Justices of the court is unfortunate and it is wrong and all of us right thinking people must condemn it.”

“I mean look at the recent lie that somehow Otumfuo was the conduit for passing bribes to the Judges and now you can’t hold anybody responsible because somebody did it online and, so that should warn our media…it must serve as a lesson to all of us,” President Mahama advised.

Speaking on Oman FM, Anthony Karbo noted that the president’s initial silence over the allegations was disturbing as it gave an indication that the bribery case was intended to aid the ruling National Democratic Congress.

“I agree with the president’s dismissal of these allegations because it was expected that the president and his team should have distanced themselves from this story. And it is very timely that they have also spoken about it because their silence on this matter was very worrying.”

He, therefore, lauded President Mahama together with the Chiefs at the Manhyia Palace for distancing themselves from the incriminatory report, stating that: “any attack on the Chieftaincy institution is an attack on the people…And I’m very happy that the palace came out very strongly and to state their position.”