Deputy New Patriotic Party (NPP) General Secretary, Nana Obiri Boahen, says he was blackmailed by the NDC member, popularly known as “Kwaku Skirt’ following damning revelations of a leaked audio conversation between him and the NDC activist.
According to him, he was tricked to echo his sentiments and ill feelings about the party in a private chat with an opposition NDC member because he needed vital information from him on former President Mahama and his government.
Listen to Nana Obiri-Boahen
HOT AUDIO: NPP has abandoned me but I won’t talk-Obiri Boahen cries out
“Yes, the tape making rounds is my voice but I must say that I manufactured the words [on the leaked tape] because I needed some vital information from their party. Little did I know that I was being recorded”, Obiri-Boahen told Okay FM in an interview.
Nana Obiri Boahen in that recorded conversation told Kwaku Skirt he was being unfairly treated as an official of the governing party, while his colleagues are supposedly grabbing and making economic gains from the party’s incumbency.
“Till date I don’t even have an office at the party’s headquarters. To be frank, i have been using my own private car, and the party has not given me any official car for my use as Deputy General Secretary. I buy my own fuel. And even on official trips abroad, I’ll be left to my fate. When I recently went to Germany, it was an NPP Member who bought ticket for me. I went to Spain, Dortmund it was an individual that processed my trip. I do virtually everything, and I don’t remember the last time I received a monthly salary from the party. Even when we went to Cape Coast recently on an official assignment, as a member of the resolution committee, they gave me only GHC 3000, and received a paltry sum of GHC 2000 for fuel. So in all I was given just GHC 5000, while the Flag Staff House had given headquarters an amount of about GHC 50 billion. I’m only watching them; what is happening now is called “grabbing grabbing” that is what they are doing. I have not even been contacted by any Minister for any contract or whatsoever. I have been handling late J.B Danquah Adu’s case from day one, and I have been using my own resources for court, and even give tips for Journalists. Nobody cares about that case. I have been following up the case and I can tell you i have an impending trip abroad and I even had to rescheduled my flight to make it to court on 21st, March in J.B’s case. I’ll have to pay the penalty for rescheduling that flight, and I’ll have to bear that cost alone.”
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But reacting to the audio-tape conversation circulating in the media, Nana Obiri Boahen said he tactfully opened up in that conversation in order to divulge classified information from Kwaku Skirt.
He pleaded with the public to disregard the controversial details of their conversation.
“What I said in that conversation is not true reflection of what is going on in my party. But sometimes as mature politician, if you want to squeeze information out of people you need to exaggerate something, because when you show disinterest in what he’s saying, he will not give you enough information. But lying and giving him false information, he was able to give me detailed information. In fact the information I had from him has been very beneficial to me as an individual and to my party as well. What he said about the NDC concerning the plans and strategies of the NDC party, I have it all and I won’t discuss on the airwaves; I’m too mature as a politician.”
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Mr. Boahen who claimed his integrity and popularity in his party will not be plummeted despite the supposed ‘reckless’ comment, indicated that the NDC activist threatened to leak the tape after he rejected his demands.
“After he had told me he had recorded me, he threatened to release the audio if I refused to give him his 5,000 Dollars he demanded.
He therefore believes that it is his refusal to pay the money that pushed Skirt to leak the tape.
“Portraying himself as a member of my party and pulling out an NPP card to deceive me, that is fraudulent” he said.
He however did not state whether he will take legal action against the NDC activist or not.
