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'Influence-peddling' Nyantakyi used George Weah to widen his business interests' - Baako alleges
'Influence-peddling' Nyantakyi used George Weah to widen his business interests' - Baako alleges

'Influence-peddling' Nyantakyi used Weah's name to widen his business interests' - Baako alleges

The Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako has alleged that embattled former Ghana Football Association President Kwesi Nyantakyi used the name of Liberian President George Weah to widen his business interests during an undercover sting operation by Tiger Eye PI which cost him his job.

Reading from alleged e-mail correspondence between Nyantakyi and the Tiger Eye Team dated Saturday, November 25th, Baako said the Tiger Eye team did not meet the then-presidential candidate Weah and a former world best footballer in 2017 because he was not part of their agenda.

"Please, I realise that the transfer through the bank is problematic. Ahmed, Abu (Abdulai Abu Alhassan) and George Weah are coming to Doha on Tuesday, with all due respect to you, kindly deduct your share and hand over the cash to Ahmed and Abu on Tuesday when they come to Doha. George Weah is the presidential candidate in Liberia, he was world best footballer in 1995. He played for Monaco, PSG, AC Milan and Chelsea. He is very popular and well known, he will win the election... The current President of Liberia supports him, he is very well known in Qatar... but on this trip he is coming to meet Sheikh only, he doesn't want media coverage or reportage on it. It should be discrete and confidential, the election re-run will take place on December 10," Baako said on Wednesday during Accra based Peace FM’s morning programme, Kokorokoo.

He said the refusal of the Tiger Eye team (who were posing as a Sheikh interested in investing in Ghana) to meet Weah infuriated Nyantakyi who had spent money on tickets for Weah to Doha for the meeting and was desperately trying to widen his scope of influence.

"The Tiger Team did not meet them because for them it was not part of their agenda... and Kwesi Nyantakyi got angry that he had reached the place with this George Weah....

"He was trying to widen his scope of influence. Okay, that is the influence peddler in him that was working and so he is bringing a Presidential candidate who he was sure would win... So he got angry and these are television conversations, the transcripts".

He said, when the Weah meeting did not happen, Nyantakyi began to suspect that the people he was dealing with were not genuine and threatened them.

Baako in a change of mood later empathised with Nyantakyi, explaining that he has been his backer over the years but there was nothing he could have done to salvage his (Nyantakyi) situation.

“I’ve backed him and I like him. This is a painful experience. I’m genuinely hurt except that there’s no way I could have controlled or manipulated the process in his favour," he stressed.

Background

Former GFA President Kwesi Nyantakyi has come under scrutiny since the airing of an investigative documentary exposing alleged acts of corruption involving GFA officials.

The embattled former GFA boss was seen and heard describing how to make money from a proposed sponsorship deal from a supposed investor in the documentary.

For a deal worth about $15 million, Nyantakyi and his fellow 'conspirators' were to make $3.5 million from it in one of the most damaging scenes in the video in which he said he would funnel the monies into the country through his microfinance company.

He also boasted of his relationship with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, suggesting the president and his vice, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, were susceptible to bribery, and that the two could be influenced with $5 million and $3 million respectively.

Nyantakyi is currently being investigated by the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghana Police Service over a charge of defrauding by false pretence.

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