General News of Saturday, 17 December 2022

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

I should apologize for saying the truth? – Asiedu Nketiah fires back at critics of viral audio

National Chairman hopeful of NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah National Chairman hopeful of NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah

Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, a National Chairman hopeful of the National Democratic Congress has parried calls for him to apologize to the Supreme Court and his competitor, Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo over the content of a viral audio which captured him making some revelations about the 2020 election petition.

Asiedu Nketiah, in an Okay FM interview on Friday, December 16, 2022, owned up to the content of the audio but vowed not to retract or apologize.

The outgoing General Secretary of the NDC stated that everything he said in the video is the truth and that he sees no sense in apologizing for stating the obvious.

He accused members of the New Patriotic Party of being behind the calls for him to apologize.

Asiedu Nketiah also outlined the difference in the 2012 and 2022 election petitions filed by the NPP and NDC respectively.

“I won’t retract and apologize because I said the truth. It is the NPP who are behind it, described as a leaked tape. It is not a leaked tape. I said it at a gathering and I was aware of the things I was saying. I said the truth. I’m daring anyone to come out and deny any falsehood in what I said. So far, no one has come out to dispute what I said.

“Everything I said is public knowledge. In court, I said that we didn’t bring collated results. The case we took to court wasn’t about our pink sheets versus the EC’s pink sheets. Our case was built on the fact that the Electoral Commission breached aspects of the constitution and we wanted the EC to be judged on their own figures,” he said.

Asiedu Nketiah in the said audio accused the incumbent chairman Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo of being the brain behind the party’s defeat in the 2020 elections and the election petition.

“In terms of the party’s operations, I superintendent over all affairs, and everyone reports to me. As a result, I may as well accept the blame for the party’s inability to collate its 2020 election results.

However, there are specific people who engineered that problem. The Chairman’s system for collating results broke down after computing results from 5 regions.

Later when we had to go to court, he didn’t give me any useful data to present. That’s why I said I didn’t have our collated results when I was asked. I don’t know how to lie”, he explained in the local Twi dialect.