The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described as fake, a video being circulated on social media, which the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) claims captures President Nana Akufo-Addo accepting a bribe.
In the said videotape, the second wife of the Director of Urban Roads, Alhaji Abass, is seen meeting Nana Akufo-Addo through another stalwart of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the Nima residence of the President and giving him a fat brown envelope.
The NDC says it was a bribery scene involving the President but the NPP says it is a doctored video of a campaign donation that happened prior to the 2016 general elections.
At a press conference on Wednesday, 2 December 2020, the NDC argued that Alhaji Abass’ wife doled out the alleged bribe to President Akufo-Addo so he could keep her husband at post since there were agitations for his from office on grounds that he was a member of the NDC.
However, the NPP told journalists at a counter-press conference on the same day that the NDC is resorting to fake videos to save its failing campaign.
“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. We believe that the Ghanaian people are every intelligent discerning people”, the Deputy National Campaign Manager of the party, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, said.
“It is not true. I challenge that notion that Ghanaian people have short memories. I find it very insulting. It is not true. We are a people who are very aware and, so, they throw in these fake videos with the belief that people are not discerning, so, they cannot discern the fake from the real”, he said.
He added: “It’s all over social media”, noting: “Yesterday, they even dared to show it on TV”.
“We are coming after that TV station. I’m serving notice to that TV station that showed that video; it is defamatory of the President of Ghana. We are not going to take it lying down”, he noted.
“It was unethical, it was unprofessional”, Dr Abdul-Hamid said.
“You take old videos of campaign donations and distort it, seeking to make it look like a recent video? Come on. Is the NDC so incompetent even at faking things?
“You want to run a nation and you can’t fake things? Listen to the spurious explanation that the President took, in their fake video, a bribe of $40,000. Forty thousand dollars in 2016 as GHS168,000 and you think that people will believe it.
“Let’s even escalate it to $40,000 at the current rate. That gives you about GHS230,000.
“It cannot the engine of the Ford Expedition that candidate Mahama took from Kanazoe”, he said.