The National Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is currently under fire after his alleged audio tape was leaked.
The content of the leaked tape has drawn widespread criticism from a section of the public, with many condemning Samuel Ofosu Ampofo’s utterances.
In the audio, he is heard saying many things, including urging verbal attacks on the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Jean Mensa.
Mr. Ampofo is also heard saying that party communicators are free to insult the Peace Council Chairman, Professor Emmanuel Asante.
The NDC Chairman has since been invited by the Police CID to assist in investigations regarding the said tape.
In light of the controversy surrounding this whole issue, YEN.com.gh takes a look at four things Ofosu Ampofo said in his alleged leaked tape:
1. NDC should focus their attention of President Akufo-Addo
In the leaked audio, Ofosu Ampofo allegedly said the NDC must not focus on the IGP, but rather President Akufo-Addo, when apportioning blame for the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election.
He said: “Once we are focusing our attention on Akufo-Addo and in fact I think that we should not focus too much on the IGP.
In fact a policewoman called me and said as for them, they regard the IGP as a civilian because the man is [retired] and once you have retired as an IGP...this came from a policewoman.
And so even though we will bash the IGP, I think that the whole thing was political so we must situate the communication on the president who is the commander in chief and who controls the security agencies and how he has shown his true colours as a very violent person.
“We traced the antecedent from when he became a flagbearer and what he did to his own chairman and others and created a culture of silence and beat people up and did all sorts of things and has brought him into government. We need to expose him so that tomorrow as my brother said if NDC decides that we are also organising ourselves which of course we are going to organise and organise ourselves well then gradually we have shifted the attention onto them. In fact when people hear of violence in by-election, they will be thinking about Invincible Forces and the rest so we will quietly be doing our own thing.”
2. Insult Peace Council and EC Chairs
He also called for the Peace Council and EC Chairpersons to be taken to the cleaners.
He said: “There are CSO and religious organisations especially the Peace Council chair. For the first time, I will endorse insulting the Peace Council chair. [loud clapping...] I like that. We have already started.
“When we went to her office she said oo this one, it is you it is the NDC and NPP your usual thugs…so you know as a commissioner [inaudible] … I think we need to take her to the cleaners. [clapping follows].”
3. Plans for “covert and overt operations”
The NDC National Chairman also revealed plans for “covert and overt operations”, insisting life will be made uncomfortable for some people.
He said: “We will go after them. But we will not go after them face to face. We have to use tactical approaches to make life very uncomfortable for some of them. We will target some people, and we will let the people know that their life is in danger and once they know their life is in danger they themselves will be careful.
“As for that one I want to assure you that we will go all out to ensure that as President John Mahama said when it comes to this game, in fact, we are better than them.”
4. Explains why NDC withdrew from the by-election
On why the NDC withdrew from the by-election, he said: “And there was pressure on me.
So I called him again, fortunately around the same time Honorable [name inaudible] came with me so we had to do some consultations with the candidate and then weigh the options and see. We were not in a state of preparedness to call for even reinforcement from anywhere.
“As Capt Asaase Gyimah said, how do you call people with bare hands to go and face this force? Any intelligent person will say let’s weigh the option this is a by-election when we even lose the seat it doesn’t make any difference.
Why should they slaughter because the tendency is that Hawks were being unleashed into the constituency and their determination is to mow them down as many as possible to let the Hawks and others know that “look you are nothing.”
So why can’t we prevent that? “At the same time, there (sic) was mixed communications about the number of deaths. And it was all over the place that already two people are dead and as a party leader how do I encourage people to go and face this fire and die. So I had no option. I had no option. That is why I was tactical in saying that we are withdrawing our part agents because you see we are not in charge of elections.”