The contents of a leaked tape that indicts a top member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has dealt a blow to ongoing efforts to break up party militias, says the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Communications Director of the governing party, Yaw Boaben Asamoa, says the scalding revelations in the widely circulated tape dents the trust that is necessary to reach an agreement on how to disband party-affiliated thugs.

“The least it does is it heightens the tension and brings in some suspicion. Because the kinds of things that we hear on that tape, if they are being carried out in the shadows can be deadly,” Mr Boaben Asamoa said Wednesday on PM Express, a MultiTV current affairs programme.

Delivering the State of the Nation address to Parliament last week, President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo obliged the NPP and NDC to work together to break up thugs affiliated to them.

The leaked tape is an alleged meeting of NDC Communicators in which a voice believed to be that of the party’s National Chairman, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, revealing militia groups were brought to the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election by both the NDC and NPP.

The voice that many say sounds like NDC’s National Chairman is heard saying that members of NDC-aligned militia group, Azorka Boys, were brought from Tamale to the constituency. He also said the NPP-aligned Kandahar Boys were also brought there.

The revelations explain the bloody violence that characterised the by-election at a polling station and prompted the setting up of a Commission of Inquiry by the Presidency to look into the violence that marred the by-election.

Photo: The NDC says Mr Ofosu Ampofo's words have been doctored

The voice is again heard laying out an elaborate plan to pursue persons the NDC thugs encountered during the violence and their family members as well.

“We will go after them. But we will not go after them face to face. We have to use tactical approaches to make life very uncomfortable for some of them. We will target some people and we will let people know that their lives are in danger. I want to assure you that we will go all out to ensure that as President John Mahama said, when it comes to this game, in fact, we are better than them,” the voice said.

• Full transcript of leaked NDC audio

Police have since invited Mr Ofosu Ampofo for questioning over the leaked tapes.

Speaking on PM Express, Mr Buaben Asamoa who seems convinced that the voice on the tape is actually that of the NDC Chairman, said the dark plans in the leaked tape impedes the good start the President’s directive offers to end political violence.

“If you have somebody you are going to sit with to discuss as topical and as serious an issue as resolving political-related violence and that person apparently, behind the scenes, is planning even more dastardly acts of political violence, then you have cause to be concerned.

“You may be sitting with somebody who intends to kidnap you in the next moment or do some harm to your family so you are destabilised as a politician,” he fears.

He said talks between the Chairmen of the NDC and NPP have started in respect of the President’s directive. “My information is that they have spoken three times on the phone,” Mr Buaben Asamoa revealed.

He wants Mr Ofosu Ampofo, who has remained silent since the tape leaked to “to do something exceptional to restore trust…first of all his voice needs to be heard on this matter.”