Bribery allegations against Bantama MP is cheap politics

A viral video on social media contains allegations of solicitation of bribery from a former deputy chief of staff at the Presidency and current MP for Bantama Francis Asenso-Boakye by one scruffy white man claiming to have gone to the Presidency on behalf of unnamed companies for favors on 1D1F.

The allegations are full of hearsay, conjecture and third party narratives.And the allegations are coming from a man who himself is clearly a corrupt individual.

For example, the man in the video claims that the person against whom he’s making the allegation is the President’s nephew or cousin. Clearly, he doesn’t know Francis Asenso-Boakye who is neither the president’s nephew nor cousin.

Secondly, the man claims that he went to the presidency with one Alhaji Sunday, first vice chairman of the NPP in the northern region. It was this same Alhaji Sunday who claimed that Asenso-Boakye had the power to help them achieve their goal. It was also this Alhaji Sunday who told the white man that Asenso-Boakye wants 20000 USD before he can help them with their 1D1F project.

Clearly, this is a corrupt White man who went to the presidency with an NPP chairman because he wanted to use political influence to do business in Ghana. Why did the scruffy White man not go straight to the Ministry of Trade to do business without passing through an NPP chairman, if he was not a corrupt man? Why did he not mention the name of his company in the video if he has nothing to hide? Why did he follow a party chairman to the Presidency if he had no corrupt intentions?

Secondly, the White man claims that Asenso-Boakye didn’t waste time with them but asked them what they wanted. After that he gave them a note that asked the trade ministry to give them a hearing. Asenso-Boakye, according to the White man’s narrative, never directly asked him for anything in return. And nothing was paid to anyone by the White man.

In response, the Bantama MP has denied ever meeting or knowing the White man making the allegations and has blamed his political opponents for concocting the story.

So, where exactly is the story? A corrupt white man went to the presidency with the ruling party northern regional vice chairman to try to use political influence for his business and could not succeed. And now this same corrupt White man who failed to succeed through political influence now turns around and wants the public to believe that he failed to do business because he refused to pay a bribe to a deputy chief of staff who has nothing to do with 1D1F.

And this is coming seven years later in the midst of the ruling NPP internal politics. It is very clear that this is a concocted story by faceless individuals with political ill-motives hiding behind a scruffy White man claiming to be representing nameless companies doing business in Ghana.

No discerning audience will take seriously such a corrupt White man who tried and failed to use political influence to do business in Ghana.