NDC bribing PPP candidates - Nduom

The flag bearer of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, has accused the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) of bribing PPP parliamentary candidates so they could resign and revoke their membership.

According to him, with just a week to the elections, known NDC leaders have attempted to bribe six of the PPP’s parliamentary candidates with money, cars, and other promises.

Dr Nduom’s allegation follows a similar one made by the NPP that President John Mahama and his brother attempted bribing the party’s Northern regional chairman, Daniel Bugri Naabu, with GHS3.3million, two SUVs, and GHS 500,000.

At a press conference, Mustapha Hamid, spokesperson for NPP flag bearer Nana Akufo-Addo, said: “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 presidency has been so depraved, so muddied, so dirtied that I tell you in all sincerity as a Ghanaian that I feel terribly sad as a Ghanaian,” Mr Hamid said.

Speaking in relation to this matter in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Acccra100.5FM on Wednesday November 30, Dr Nduom said: “I cannot state whether that happened or not in the NPP but what I and the PPP do know is that we (PPP) have some six constituencies where we are sure of victory at the parliamentary level, but NDC leaders are calling them to come for cars and money, promising them that when the NDC wins, those parliamentary candidates would be made DCEs and MCEs.

“With just a week to the December polls, the NDC leaders are telling those PPP parliamentary candidates to publicly announce that they are no longer contesting and that they had quit following the PPP and Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom. This is really happening; they are not allegations but we have told our parliamentary candidates that they also deserve to go to parliament and so they shouldn’t fall for the NDC’s dubious agenda.”

He added: “So many different things are happening. NDC has been in power for eight good years. John Dramani Mahama has been the vice president and now the president, yet he doesn’t have any message for the people. He cannot lay claim to life-changing programmes and interventions he has introduced but is only sharing money to buy votes, trying to take out key members of other political parties. This is embarrassing. This just makes a mockery of our democracy.”