Member of Parliament for Effiduase Asokore, Dr. Nana Ayew Afriyie, has revealed that senior members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are preparing to visit President John Dramani Mahama to formally apologise on behalf of the party’s Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi.
Chairman Wontumi is currently under investigation by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) for alleged financial crimes, including money laundering and fraud.
In an interview on Channel One TV’s Face to Face with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Tuesday, June 10, Dr. Ayew Afriyie claimed that the President may be behind Wontumi’s legal troubles.
“For Chairman Wontumi’s case, we’re going to beg. The hand behind this is bigger than the people who run the EOCO and the intelligence agencies. I will put it at the doorstep of President Mahama. Wontumi went overboard in some of his videos. And I played a lot of them to show him on June 9. I told him we will go and beg, if we have to kneel down in front of President Mahama, and we will tell him that for these videos, he [Wontumi] crossed the line,” he stated.
He acknowledged that Chairman Wontumi’s past comments — captured in widely circulated videos prior to the 2024 elections — were inappropriate and personal in nature, adding that Wontumi had agreed to apologise.
Dr. Afriyie explained that while political rivalry is expected, personal attacks based on falsehoods should not be condoned, and called for humility from party leadership in addressing the issue.
Chairman Wontumi was released by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) after meeting his bail conditions on June 2 following his arrest and detention. Wontumi’s legal team on Monday, June 2, formally withdrew a motion that sought a review of his GH¢50 million bail condition. The motion, originally filed at the High Court in Accra on May 30, 2025, was slated for hearing on Tuesday, June 3. However, it was withdrawn a day earlier on Monday, June 2.
The Ashanti regional NPP Chairman was granted bail on Wednesday, May 28, with two justified sureties. His legal team, led by Andy Appiah-Kubi, confirmed that the bail conditions were fulfilled by Friday, May 30.
Despite meeting the requirements, his release was delayed due to the pending motion for bail review, which, according to his lawyers, was filed without his explicit consent.
But after a gruelling legal effort, Wontumi’s lawyers successfully secured his release from detention.
