Kofi Owusu Jerry, a sports reporter with Angel Broadcasting Network (ABN), has opined that Kwesi Nyantakyi, the former president of the Ghana Football Association, committed an error of judgment by making public the $100,000 bribery offer he supposedly made to some persons with affiliations to ace investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas.
Kofi Owusu said on a show on his channel that Nyantakyi's confession of making the payment is wrong on multiple levels.
In his view, the confession by Nyantakyi not only confirms the content of the Number12 investigative piece but also has the potential of jeopardizing his political career.
“They suspected you were corrupt so they trapped you with money and caught you. As a result, FIFA and CAF banned you. These same people turned around to ask you to pay a bribe for them to drop the investigations and you paid. These are the same people who disguised as Dubai businessmen and later brought you evidence of corruption so if you agreed to pay the money then its confirmation of their claims.
“They had two charges against you. To have the courage to say this thing on national TV is indicative of a lack of smartness. Nyantakyi was not smart. He was not smart at all,” he said.
Kwesi Nyantakyi, in an Onua FM interview, detailed the conversations and transactions that ensued prior to the airing of the documentary.
He mentioned some prominent figures who had knowledge of the situation and were involved in the arrangements that led to him making an alleged payment of $100,000 to Anas.
He added that he, however, got a refund after he was featured in the documentary, which was aired in 2018.
“Before the video was released, a former colleague at the GFA Exco, Adam Munkaila, took me to Anas' lawyer. I met him at his residence around Westland and he told me Anas was his student and had informed him he needed $150,000 to kill the story.
'I gave them $100,000, but they told me the amount was inadequate and later went ahead to release the video," he said in the interview with Captain Smart on Onua TV.
He continued to state, “After the video came out, I asked for a refund and even the refund was done in instalments. Today, they would bring $20,000, and the next day another $10,000. They were giving me stories, but eventually, I got everything back.”
EK/AE