Former New Patriotic Party (NPP) Chairman Paul Afoko has recounted a dramatic moment in the party’s internal politics, where he claims he personally confronted attempts at vote-buying ahead of a crucial election.
Speaking in an interview on Starr FM MyNewsGh, Afoko narrated how a party executive once approached him with money allegedly distributed for sharing among delegates.
“Chairman come up to me and say, Chairman, I’m not chairman then, Mr. Foko look at this money, I’ve just been given this money and told to go and share it amongst my executives.
“Did you buy votes? Why would I do that? You’ve never done that?” Afoko said, stressing that he relied on his message and not money to win support.
According to him, he had already toured the constituencies several times, warning members about the dangers of failing to win the next election.
“I had gone round the constituencies three times, I had delivered my message, I had warned them that if we did not win the next election, the sitting president would win his second term.
That would mean NPP being in the wilderness for 12 years and will be emaciated,” he recalled.
Afoko insisted that delegates resonated with his message and supported him wholeheartedly. But his concerns deepened when he personally encountered signs of vote-buying at a party event in Tamale.
“I witnessed it, I mean, I even went in anger to go and confront the presidential candidate at the time to say, look, please save your money, you are wasting your money, I’m going to win,” he stated.
Recounting the incident, Afoko alleged he was blocked from seeing the candidate, believed to be Nana Akufo-Addo, at the Modern City Hotel in Tamale.
“They blocked me at the entrance to his room. I said, oh, he is in the bathroom, he can’t see you. And I saw Tanko, who is Dr Bawumia’s bodyguard, and I used to be very free with that guy.
And I said, Tanko, what are you doing here? He said, oh, the doctor is in there with Akufo.
“And I said, oh, really? So I turned to his bodyguards who had blocked me and said, are you really telling me that I can’t go in because he’s in the bathroom?” Afoko revealed.
