Dr Afari Gyan Is Far More Credible Than Nana Akufo-Addo

By Nana Akua Tweneboah-Koduah

September 13, 2013

If anybody from the NPP camp will call into question the integrity of the Electoral Commissioner, Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan, it certainly must not be former President JA Kufuor. I mean somebody like the discredited National Chairman of the NPP, Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, must not even be the last person to cast a stone at Dr Afari Gyan. Someone who also should not even be mentioned as one of the NPP cry-babies trying to tie a rope around the neck of Dr Afari Gyan is the unabashed serial presidential election loser, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The NPP folks who have still not recovered from the dismissal of their silly election petition case by the Supreme Court (SC) have now receded from the insults they heaped upon the nine Justices who determined the case, and are now calling for the head of Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan by using scratched adjectives you can only imagine to destroy the reputation of the Electoral Commissioner. His crime was not tossing the 2012 Election in favour of Nana Akufo-Addo, his former roommate at the University of Ghana, Legon.

Human as Dr Afari Gyan is, he may have his faults but I don’t think Dr Afari Gyan is so disingenuous that he will take the whole country to ransom by going to court if he had ran and lost the 2012 Presidential Election. I must emphasise that if Dr Afari Gyan ever runs and loses an election he will never use dubious means to attempt to win power at all cost from the backdoor.

Today Nana Akufo-Addo has the guts to jab Dr Afari Gyan, but the last time I checked Dr Afari Gyan has his school certificates intact. I don’t think that Dr Afari Gyan will ever come and inform the world that he does not know where his school certificates are, and assuming if that statement was true I don’t think Dr Afari Gyan will not even make the effort to get certified true copies of his certificates to prove his sceptics wrong.,
I strongly believe that if Dr Afari Gyan had gone to do a six-month training course at the Ghana Law School as it was done in the 70s before being called to the bar, he will at least be able to remember the name of just one person he sat in the same classroom with at the Ghana Law School.

Nana Akufo-Addo claims that he went to the Ghana Law School to do the six-month training course before being called to the bar, yet he cannot recall the name of just one person in his class. People even go for a day’s seminar or workshop and they are able to recall the names of some of the people they meet there. Yet for six-months running, Nana Akufo-Addo on week days went to the Ghana Law School to do the top-up before being called to the bar, yet he does not remember the names of any lecturer/s who taught him nor the name of just one person who was in the same class with him. Is this not very strange? Nana Akufo-Addo does not have any classmates or lecturer/s at the Ghana Law School.

Dr Afari Gyan is certainly not a dishonest person. Dishonest people do things discreetly, that is why Nana Akufo-Addo is on record as the only lawyer to be enrolled on Tuesday July 8, 1975. Never in the history of the Ghana Legal Council has only ONE (1) LAWYER been enrolled on a particular date, but in Nana Akufo-Addo’s case he was the only lawyer enrolled on that day.

Available records show that it has always been the norm of the General Legal Council, established by Legal Profession Act (1960) to call several lawyers to the bar at a given time. They do not call just one lawyer to the bar, but interestingly Nana Akufo-Addo who cannot recall any classmate of his at the Ghana Law School was the only person called to the bar on that fateful Tuesday July 8, 1975. Is it not interesting?

Nana Ato Dadzie, former Chief of Staff in the Rawlings administration, in an interview with Joy FM this year stated that he and Nana Akufo-Addo were called to the bar in 1975. That was just the tip of the iceberg.

What Nana Ato Dadzie failed to inform Ghanaians was that he and Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, Mr Bentsil-Enchil and Justice Akoto Bamfo were classmates who took the six-month training course as required by the Ghana Law School at the time and that all four were called to the bar in October 2, 1975. None of these four eminent lawyers were enrolled with Nana Akufo-Addo. In fact they never attended any training course with Akufo-Addo. And while Akufo-Addo was solely enrolled on July 8, 1975, Ato Dadzie, Tsatsu Tsikata, Bentsil-Enchil and Akoto Bamfo were part of the group enrolled in October 2, 1975.

This is the disingenuous Nana Akufo-Addo who today is calling into question the credibility of Dr Afari Gyan. Everybody knows that Dr Afari Gyan is a chain smoker. He has never run away from that. And many, many people know that Akufo-Addo sniffs something and that he wakes up under the cloud of “something”. But unlike Dr Afari Gyan, Akufo-Addo has always kept mute about this allegation.

You may call Dr Afari Gyan many names, but one thing this gentleman will never do is to give the country’s diplomatic passports to drug kingpins. I don’t recall Dr Afari Gyan attempting to introduce a new law in parliament to assist a jailed drug kingpin in the United States.

Today, Dr Afari Gyan looks terrible in the eyes JA Kufuor. Time changes! When JA Kufuor won the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections it was all praise for Dr Afari Gyan. JA Kufuor never challenged the integrity of Dr Afari Gyan. But today JA Kufuor is also raising accusing fingers at Dr Afari Gyan when he Kufuor is yet to explain the bloated figures he received from notably the Ashanti and Eastern Regions during his re-election bid in 2004.

Was JA Kufuor not in office when Jake Obetsebi Lamptey dubiously torpedoed Dr Afari Gyan and falsely announced that he Kufuor had won the 2004 Presidential Election? Did Kufuor call Jake Obetsebi Lamptey to order? Did Kufuor ever state that the powers of the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Constitution have been violated by Jake Obetsebi Lamptey?

Yet we have a hypocrite like Kufuor calling for the removal of the speck in the EC’s eyes when he has multiple logs blocking his own eyesight. Jake Obetsebi Lamptey arrogated to himself the role of the Electoral Commissioner and called the presidential election results of 2004 in favour of Kufuor at the Osu Castle, the then seat of government. When therefore, you hear somebody like Jake Obetsebi Lamptey talking about electoral reforms and lambasting Dr Afari Gyan what then comes into your mind? Thief, thief and thief!

I will not waste my precious time on the likes of Sir John and AFAG, the baby-pampers group, because even die-hard NPP supporters have concluded that Sir John needs to have his head examined.

Dr Afari Gyan as head of the EC has supervised the conduct of several elections in Ghana which has won him both local and international praise. There has never been any election that has been conducted anywhere in the world which does not have some challenges. Indeed some of the major challenges which characterized the 2012 General Elections were some unsigned pink sheets by some presiding officers and the inability of same to do simple accounting records on the sheets.

That is why some of the nine Justices called on the EC to ensure that in future it will recruit educated officers who would be able to do simple calculations and also ensure that all electoral sheets are signed after the declaration of results.

Therefore, the EC does not need any serious reforms. The rooftop cries by the NPP for reforms and the resignation of Dr Afari Gyan is highly uncalled for and totally misplaced. In any case Dr Afari Gyan is set to retire this year so why this shrill cries by the NPP from all fronts?

But to cap it all, I will say with all certainty that Nana Akufo-Addo, who suffers from credibility problem, will never come close to Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan if the integrity of the two people are put under any microscopic view.


nakuakoduah@yahoo.com