Kwesi Nyantakyi, a former President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), has rejected attributions of bad character being leveled on his personality as an unworthy candidate to become a Member of Parliament in Ghana.
He says there is no court of competent jurisdiction in the country or a committee of inquiry that has described him as a man of bad character, making such suggestions unfounded.
Kwesi Nyantakyi is among the many persons seeking to replace late Deputy Finance Minister, John Ampontuah Kumah, as Member of Parliament for the Ejisu constituency in the Ashanti region, in an upcoming by-election occasioned by the demise of the late MP.
His candidature has come under serious scrutiny following an undercover investigative piece produced by Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ TigerEye P.I. which indicted the former CEO of Wa All Stars, leading to his suspension from all football activities.
After the June 2018 documentary, the Ethics Committee of FIFA banned Mr. Nyantakyi for life after he was found guilty of breaching ethics regulations on conflicts of interest, bribery and corruption and commission. However, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) later reduced the former Vice President of the Confederation of African Football’s (CAF) ban from football to 15 years.
But to many Ghanaians, this, is not an exoneration for Mr. Nyantakyi, making his decision to contest for a Member of Parliament questionable, especially after disclosing on Onua TV’s morning show, Maakye, that he paid a bribe of US$100,000 to Anas to kill the documentary when the TigerEye team allegedly demanded US$150,000 from him to conceal the story, a claim Anas has denied.
Some have expressed surprise as to why the NPP will even consider him as a worthy replacement for John Kumah, considering that in the bribery controversy that underpinned his grace to grass story, he implicated some government officials and the presidency, something that angered the government to consider legal action against him.
But in another interview Wednesday, April 03, 2024, Mr. Nyantakyi said he does not see his fiasco menacing his political chances, particularly in the Ejisu race.
“Controversies are not necessarily justified. Controversies may be motivated by considerations such as politics, such as envy, differences in opinion etc. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re justified,” he told Evans Mensah on Accra-based JoyNews.
When the host reminded him that the NPP’s constitution requires that one can only pass the test of good character to be approved as a parliamentary candidate, he retorted, “What is wrong with Mr Nyantakyi’s character? I am a man of good character. Have I been declared to be a man of bad character by any court of competent jurisdiction in Ghana or by any committee or anything of that sort in Ghana? Have I?” he quizzed.
Speaking on the action taken against him by the world’s football governing body, FIFA, Mr. Nyantakyi said what is considered corruption by FIFA does not apply in Ghana.
“That is an arbitration. It is not part of Ghana’s laws. Corruption in FIFA statutes doesn’t mean corruption in Ghana law. They’re entirely different in meaning. We’re operating within the laws of Ghana so you must confine yourself to the meaning of crime as defined in Ghana,” he noted.
Number 12 Documentary: Anas demanded $150,000 to kill story – Nyantakyi
