The Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr. Hannah Louisa Bissiw, has lashed out at Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential candidate for the 2012 elections, describing him as a “sexy old fool”.

She said the NPP flagbearer did not deserve to assume the highest office of the land, stressing that Nana Addo would be a bad influence on the youth if he was elected President of the country. This, according to her, was because the one-time Foreign Affairs Minister and Attorney General would be providing fertile grounds for the males in society to be womanizers.

The Deputy Minister poured out these words when she addressed members of the Kwame Nkrumah university of Science and Technology (KNUST) branch of the Tertiary Education Institution Network (TEIN) of the NDC last week Tuesday, the same platform Kobby Acheampong used to insult Nana Addo with his infamous “Nana is a fruitcake” statement. Dr. Bissiw observed that if Nana Addo was not a “sexy old fool”, he would not have told Ghanaians to ask women whether he was old or not, when a section of the public raised questions about his age.

The Deputy Minister stressed that Nana Addo confirmed his womanizing status with his reaction to the criticisms. She noted that she believed the NPP flagbearer was a “sexy old fool” because he eulogized the buttocks of the late Theresa Tagoe in a tribute to the departed NPP leading member.

Bissiw, who is allegedly at loggerheads with her boss Alban Bagbin, indicated that Nana Addo did not only disgrace himself with that action, but he also demonstrated that he had no respect for womanhood. “We want a President who is a visionary and has volumes of respect for womanhood but not a President who has no vision and also has no regard for womanhood,” the veterinary doctor stated.

Dr. Bissiw suggested also that Nana Addo had no respect for the dignity of Zongo women, contending that if the NPP flagbearer had an iota of respect for Zongo women, he would not have stated publicly that he had Zongo girls as friends. “If Nana Addo respected Zongo women, he would not have decided to use them and dump them; but would have gone ahead to marry the girls he claimed to have had relationships with,” she said.

Nana Addo was not the only leading member of the country’s biggest opposition party who suffered the barrage of verbal abuse from the veterinary doctor: Ursula Owusu, a former CEO of then Westel also had her fair share of insults.

Dr. Bissiw went to the extreme when she described Ursula Owusu, an aspiring parliamentary candidate for Ablekuma Central in Accra, as a “disgrace to womanhood”.She wondered why the vociferous NPP guru kept coming into the public domain, indicating that anytime Ursula came into the public realm, the dignity of womanhood was insulted.

Ms. Owusu however declined to be drawn into the “game of invectives”. Speaking to Peace Fm, the Vice-President of FIDA said the deputy minister missed out on a fine opportunity to impart knowledge on NDC youth activists, and rather resorted to the use of verbal invectives against her.

She said it was surprising that the NDC, instead of advising and urging their youth activists on the need to work hard, rather chose to school them on insults, adding that if her (Ursula’s) efforts in helping Ghanaian women and being the voice of the voiceless was a disgrace to womanhood, then she was not bothered by persons of Hannah Bissiw’s ilk. “If Hannah Bissiw thinks my effort to help Ghanaian women makes me a disgrace to womanhood, it is okay. Besides, I don’t know when and where she sat me down to counsel me. She said the same thing at Radio Gold that she will strip me naked and descend with me into the gutter; but suffice it to be said that I don’t play in the gutters so if she does go there, she will meet her kind but certainly not me. If she thinks I will take advice from her insulting behavior, then am sorry… she is not my adviser so she should give it to those who listen to her. I only listen to good and productive counsel that will help me improve my work and benefit Ghanaians and women as a whole …,” she noted.

While urging Dr. Hannah Bissiw to focus on the work at hand at her ministry, she added that it would be a pity if the Mills-led NDC government assessed the performance of their ministers by the level of insults they directed at their political opponents.

“…that will be a poor standard of accessing performance… the NDC should prove to the Ghanaian taxpayer that their taxes have not been wasted by reckless insults and needless attacks on personalities,” she stated.