Nigeria’s
President Muhammadu Buhari has covertly interfered in the electoral
process that led to the victory of Ghana’s opposition New Patriotic
Party, NPP, candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the just concluded Ghana
presidential elections, The Trent can report.
According to a source with intimate
knowledge of the situation, barely a week to the December 7, 2016
presidential election in Ghana, President Buhari approved the release of
$75 million to the presidential campaign of Nana Akufo-Addo, the NPP
candidate, with the aim of installing him as the new president of Ghana.
Just like General Buhari, Akufo-Addo, aged 72, ran his presidential
campaign on the message of “Change”.
The Trent gathered
exclusively on Friday, December 9, 2016 that President Buhari’s
interference in Ghana’s presidential election was executed by a special
delegation from Nigeria led by Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai who
arrived Ghana days before the election under the guise of being an
“election observer”.
According to first-hand sources,
Governor El-Rufai, who lodged at the Movenpick Hotel Accra,
displayed more than passing interest in the Ghanaian presidential polls.
He propagated the campaign message of the leading opposition candidate
in the poll, and also joined in unofficially announcing that Akufo-Addo
had won the elections long before the results were declared.
“I can tell you for free that this
election has been largely a Nigerian election,” a reliable source told
our correspondent in Accra.
“A lot of Ghanaians are happy that they
have had the chance to elect a new president but in actual fact,
Akufo-Addo, the new president-elect of may have lost this election but
for the last minute cash bailout by President Buhari.
“It is an open secret in Ghana that
Akufo-Addo’s party, the NPP has suffered a protracted cash crisis owing
to the exit of their party from power within the last eight years.
“The cash crunch was affecting their
campaigns seriously until the bailout from Buhari. This helped a great
deal in election day mobilization of voters, hiring of buses from Accra
to different parts of the country to convey voters to their hometowns
where they are registered to vote amongst other logistic concerns.
“This is an unprecedented interference
in the politics of another nation that could have serious diplomatic
implications between Nigeria and Ghana.
“Both countries have enjoyed a good
relationship for years but this is one step that the Nigerian government
under Buhari has taken too far,” the source, who spoke to our reporter
on condition of anonymity said.
President Buhari’s careless interference
in the politics of foreign nations recently made news with reports that
he donated $500 million to the Hillary Clinton campaign in the November
8, 2016 US election.
A video, circulated by a US
non-governmental group, the American Black Group for Democracy, had
alleged that Nigeria donated $500 million (about N150 billion) to
Clinton’s failed bid for the White House.
It claimed that the money was “pledged
to the US Secretary of State, Sen John Kerry, and US Ambassador in
Abuja” and added that “the donation may create a huge misunderstanding
between Nigeria and the incoming Trump’s US government.”
The Buhari administration denied the allegations and slam the report as “fiction”.
Fresh allegations of Buhari’s
involvement in the ‘removal’ of President John Mahama of Ghana may have
pushed Nigeria further into the brink of a diplomatic war with Ghana
resulting in far-reaching implications.
Asked why President Buhari would
overstep his boundaries to interfere in the Ghanaian polls, the source
disclosed that President Mahama’s rising influence within the West
African sub-region and his impressive performance in Ghana’s
infrastructure development was increasingly being used by Nigerians as a
yardstick to measure the performance of Buhari’s lacklustre change
administration in Nigeria.
According to an inside source in the
Nigerian presidency, Buhari’s handlers were said to have been alarmed by
the unfolding trend and how it could affect Buhari’s re-election in
2019, and then worked to convince the president that supporting
President Mahama’s opponent in the Ghanaian presidential election was a
worthwhile investment.
“It’s an ego trip for the president
[Buhari],” the source said. “Apparently, inspired by reports of Russia’s
interference in the US Elections, and craving a need for regional
dominance, Buhari’s strategist felt that actively aiding the
installation of heads of states in West African countries would boost
his profile on the continent.”
A senior official of the Ghanaian government who did not want to be named told to The Trent
on Monday, ahead of the election day, that the Ghanaian government has
established confirmation of “external interference” from the Buhari
government but was carefully considering the implications of any
outright or diplomatic confrontation that could snowball into a serious
crisis between both nations.
Efforts by The Trent to contact presidential spokespersons Garba Shehu and Femi Adesina proved abortive at the time of this report.
Meanwhile, El-Rufai who is currently
still lodged at the Movenpick Hotel, Accra, is said to be preparing to
depart Ghana for Nigeria on Saturday after Friday’s official declaration of Akufo-Addo’s victory over incumbent President Mahama.
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