{"id":354553,"date":"2017-09-19T06:04:14","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T06:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=354553"},"modified":"2017-11-10T11:19:04","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T11:19:04","slug":"prosecute-a-plus-for-baseless-corruption-claims-vitus-azeem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=354553","title":{"rendered":"Prosecute A-Plus for baseless corruption claims \u2013 Vitus Azeem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anti-corruption campaigner, Vitus Azeem, is calling for the prosecution of musician, Kwame Asare Obeng, popularly known as A-Plus, for making <strong><span style=\"color: #666699;\"><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/09\/05\/a-plus-yet-to-cancel-bost-contract-despite-earlier-threat\/\">\u201cbaseless\u201d corruption allegations<\/a><\/span><\/strong> against two government officials.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Azeem\u2019s comment comes after the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, stated that A-Plus could not prove his corruption allegations against the Deputy Chiefs of Staff, <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/09\/04\/asenso-boakye-jinapor-never-took-bribe-a-plus\/\"><strong>Francis Asenso-Boakye<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, and Abu Jinapor.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;ZI1W3ofwQLVFqABHtn1dkx87scAKIcm2&#8243;]According to Mr. Azeem, A-Plus cannot go unpunished for making such allegations and failing to substantiate\u00a0them.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on <strong>Eyewitness News<\/strong> on Monday, he said, \u201cI think we cannot leave it there because we should not allow people to make unsubstantiated claims against individuals and then go free. There should be some action taken.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked if the Police should take up the matter to prosecute A-Plus, he said, \u201cI think so, if there is no basis for making the allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Vitus Azeem discounted the possibility of fewer people reporting corruption due to the fear of \u00a0prosecution if their claims are found to be unfounded.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_349279\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-349279\" style=\"width: 644px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-349279\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/A-Plus-1-e1504095108338.jpg\" alt=\"Kwame Asare Obeng a.k.a A-Plus\" width=\"644\" height=\"397\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-349279\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kwame Asare Obeng a.k.a A-Plus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He said, \u201c\u2026. Maybe it is just for some personal reason that is why you did it. If you cannot prove it, [you should be prosecuted]. It will not even help us at all in the fight against corruption,\u201d he told Richard Sky.<\/p>\n<p>The CID after completing its investigations into the allegations as directed by the President, said \u201cthe allegation of corruption was found to be baseless, unsubstantiated and without credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A-Plus took to Facebook last month to accuse President Akufo-Addo\u2019s two Deputy Chiefs of Staff, Francis Asenso-Boakye, and Abu Jinapor of being corrupt, without giving reasons for the accusation.<br \/>\nFrancis Asenso-Boakye subsequently rejected the claims describing it as baseless.<\/p>\n<p>It later emerged that A-Plus\u2019 allegation against the two individuals may be linked to his desire to get an extra contract aside a BOST deal he was given under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.<\/p>\n<p>After receiving some backlash from the public including some members of the government, <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/08\/27\/a-plus-corruption-claims-baseless-deputy-chief-of-staff\/\"><strong>A-Plus<\/strong><\/a><\/span> apologized to the President for his actions, admitting that he used the wrong platform to voice out his concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Following a directive from the Office of the President to the CID to look into the matter and an invitation to A-Plus by the CID to provide details of his claims, the musician said in a later interview withdrew his allegations of corruption against the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the CID has said it is still investigating the claims of corruption made by the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong against the Minister for Communication, Ursula Owusu Ekuful.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<br \/>\nBy: Jonas Nyabor\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anti-corruption campaigner, Vitus Azeem, is calling for the prosecution of musician, Kwame Asare Obeng, popularly known as A-Plus, for making \u201cbaseless\u201d corruption allegations against two government officials. Mr. Azeem\u2019s comment comes after the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, stated that A-Plus could not prove his corruption allegations against the Deputy Chiefs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[94,147,3,1175],"class_list":["post-354553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories","tag-a-plus","tag-abu-jinapor","tag-ghana-news","tag-vitus-azeem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=354553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=354553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=354553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=354553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}