The Member of Parliament for Kwadaso Constituency in the Ashanti Region, Professor Kingsley Nyarko, has denied allegations that money given to election officials during the Ejisu constituency by-election on Tuesday, April 30, was intended as bribery.
The incident was caught on camera and has been a hot topic since it came to light on Tuesday afternoon, with the Election Commission immediately withdrawing the officers involved and handing the incident over to police for criminal investigation. .
In the video, Professor Nyarko can be seen talking to election officials, and at one stage, as he moves to another table with several officials, he pulls out a white envelope and hands it to them. However, election officials were apparently reluctant to do so. Please take. Professor Nyarko then dropped the envelope on the table and left.
He later told Joy FM that the envelope contained money that he intended to spend on lunch as a favor to election officials.
He said what he offered could not be considered a bribe because he would not have tried to bribe election officials in public as he did in this case.
Professor Nyarko maintained that if he had intended to bribe officials, he would not have done so in public.
“If I were to influence them, do you think I would influence them in that public space? I just want to go on record: I have not bribed anyone and I have not bribed anyone to vote. “It means I’m not trying to influence or do anything that would be inconvenient for my candidate,” he said.
He added that while individuals are free to interpret the incident as they wish, it does have an impact on EC officials who are “trained, honest and disciplined to engage in unpleasant behavior in public”. He argued that his conscience was clear because he could not.
Professor Nyarko clarified that despite the wide circulation of the video, he did not feel bad as he had done nothing wrong. He added that he knows many people will cling to the case and spin it into their own narrative.
The lawmaker stressed that he is a well-regarded teacher whose track record proves his discipline and integrity.
Again, he said he would cooperate with the investigation if necessary.
When asked about his relationship with the EC official that led to him handing over the envelope, he said: ….so there should be no relationship before that [handing an envelop]. I have never influenced anyone negatively to push people in a certain direction. ”
However, he was optimistic that his candidate, Kwabena Boateng of the New Patriotic Party, would win convincingly.
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