It appears to be déjà vu for President Akufo-Addo after an Anas-style investigative story which he hailed and promised to adopt while during his 2016 Presidential campaign, has picked him up rather as an alleged bribe-taker.
The video capturing President Akufo-Addo taking an envelope full of a reported $40,000 bribe in exchange for assuring the job of the Director of Urban Roads, Alhaji Dr. Abass Alowa, has reminded critics of how the President had hailed the same set of undercover reports while in opposition, saying he will adopt the “Anas Principle” in stamping out corruption if he won the elections that year.
In this principle, Mr. Akufo-Addo explained, the controversial investigative style of Anas Aremeyaw Anas, in which people are recorded secretly receiving bribes would be used as a boogeyman tactic to ensure his appointees do not steal.
The promise won hearts and votes for then Candidate Akufo-Addo and his New Patriotic Party (NPP), however, when he became President, the Anas Principle has since been abandoned but strangely manifested itself in ensnaring the President.
A video footage of the President taking the reported bribe from one Hajia Fawzia, wife to the Director of Urban Roads at the Ministry of Roads and Highways is all over on social media.
The gusto with which the President grabbed the brown envelope containing $40,000 dollars has since become the mainstay of trending parody on social media, with disgusted Ghanaians now undertaking what is derogatorily called the bribe challenge.
In this challenge, citizens are re-enacting the part of the video where President Akufo-Addo actually half-springs from his chair to grab the bribe with both hands.
The video had been secretly recorded by an investigative journalist in Anas’ Tiger Eye PI media stable, whom Kweku Baako, Editor-In-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, has outed as Salis Yakubu Achuliwor.
Baako confirms that he personally recruited Achuliwor for Anas’ Tiger Eye PI and trained him in the diabolic art of secretly recording people.
According to Baako, Achuliwor has fled the country to a hideout in Benin.