Investigative journalist and author Manasseh Azure Awuni has urged the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to abandon its reported plan to apologise to President John Dramani Mahama over the conduct of its Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi.
Chairman Wontumi was recently arrested and detained by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) over allegations involving organised crime and causing financial loss to the state.
Reacting to the arrest, NPP Member of Parliament for Effiduase-Asokore and Ranking Member on Parliament’s Health Committee, Dr. Nana Yaw Afriyie, suggested that the action against Wontumi was influenced by a power greater than EOCO.
Dr. Afriyie also said that the NPP leadership was considering pleading with President Mahama to forgive Wontumi for past controversial remarks.
“The hand behind Wontumi’s arrest is bigger than the people who run EOCO and other intelligence agencies. We will go and beg — if we have to kneel before President Mahama to forgive Wontumi, we will. He crossed the line in that video, so we beg,” Dr. Afriyie told Channel One TV.
In response, Manasseh Azure Awuni said the legal process should be allowed to work.“Dear NPP elders, Wontumi is accused of criminal conduct. If he’s guilty, let him plead in court, not with President Mahama,” Manasseh wrote in a social media post on Wednesday, June 11.