Mr Daniel Bugri Naabu has confirmed that President John Mahama and his brother, Ibrahim, indeed attempted bribing him.
“It is true, I think they’ve shown you the car, I believe they didn’t just call the press conference, so, there’s no doubt about that but you can call later. Thank you,” the main opposition New Patriotic Party’s Northern regional chairman told Accra-based Atinka FM on Wednesday, 30 November.
Meanwhile, the General Secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia has said only fools will believe that President Mahama and his brother attempted bribing Mr Naabu with GHS3.3million, two SUVs, and GHS500,000 as being claimed by the NPP.
Answering questions about whether the allegation did not risk denting the fortunes of the NDC in the 7 December polls, Mr Asiedu Nketia, popularly known as General Mosquito, wondered why the NDC would want to buy somebody like Mr Naabu, who, he said, cannot even speak for himself in a matter pertaining to himself.
He told Prince Minkah on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Wednesday, 30 November: “Unless you take all Ghanaians to be fools, but Ghanaians are not fools, so the type of questions I’m asking, every Ghanaian will ask those questions and will be able to draw a conclusion that this is desperation at its highest peak.
“…If I have GHS10 to pay or to bribe anybody to speak for me, it is not Bugri Naabu that I’ll be wasting that money on. NPP itself knows. And this issue where he cannot even speak for himself shows that he cannot even be speaking for anybody. A person who cannot even speak for himself, will not be able to speak for another person. I think that if you are a person who people would want to buy, then you must demonstrate that you can even speak on matters concerning you. Since Bugri Naabu was made regional chairman of NPP, ask the NPP people themselves, what impact has he made? What has been his impact? I mean do you think that somebody becomes so rich that he doesn’t know what to use his money for then he goes throwing the money away buying people who cannot speak to speak for him?”
In his estimation, the whole bribery story was cooked up by the NPP to save, what in his view, is the failing campaign of the NPP and its flag bearer Nana Akufo-Addo.
“I am saying that this whole story is something that is not worthy of the airtime you are spending on it. If Bugri Naabu claims somebody has bribed him, he can speak or his spokesperson can speak, but I know Mustapha Hamid is the spokesperson for Nana Addo and then Nana Addo’s campaign manager, so they have come together and realised that the campaign is going so bad for Nana Addo so: ‘let us throw in any mud hoping that that mud will stick’, but Ghanaians are wiser than what they take them to be.
“Everybody thinks that: ‘Oh, we have lost so it doesn’t matter, let’s throw anything inside. That is what they are doing. I’m not sure this is going to sway any sensible Ghanaians into voting for Nana Addo.”
At a press conference by Mr Hamid on Tuesday, he alleged that Mr Mahama and his brother, Ibrahim, in October this year, attempted buying Mr Naabu so he would resign from the NPP and launch an acerbic tribal campaign against Mr Akufo-Addo by painting him as a “hater of northerners”.
“He [Bugri Naabu] was supposed to resign from the NPP, damage Akufo-Addo as an anti-northern person, a rabid hater of northerners, and, in turn, they were going to give him: a brand new V6 Mitsubishi vehicle, a brand new V8 Land Cruiser [and] GHS3.3m.
“Bugri Naabu is owed by government to the tune of GHS247,000 from road contracts that he has done which government has not been paying for several years. They promised to pay that money instantly and then on the spot, they brought him GHS500,000 cash in GHS50 notes. Ibrahim Mahama dropped it right in front of him [Bugri Naabu].
“It’s terribly sad. This country is in serious trouble, we need to rescue this country from serious trouble. The preside
