It is very outrageous for people who aspire to hold high profile public offices to hypocritically hide behind what they refer to as their “private matters” and deny the electorate certain vital information that will enable them to make informed choices during elections. And it is even more outrageous for a person like Nana Akuffo Addo who so desperately wants to become the next president of Ghana to arrogantly refuse to answer certain basic questions about his moral past and thereby deny Ghanaians their fundamental rights to know the truths about their aspiring president.

If Nana Akuffo Addo does not see it fit to tell Ghanaians about his past narcotic drug addiction, or otherwise, how does he expect Ghanaians to entrust their destinies into his hands. For well over a year now Ghanaians have been asking this simple question whether Nana Akuffo Addo who has declared his intentions to be their president is, or was a WEE smoker or a cocaine addict. As a staunch NPP supporter and Allan Cash admirer, my passionate appeal to Nana Akuffo Addo is that the coming presidential election in Ghana is going to be a straight context between NDC and NPP.

The bitter truth is that Ghanaians are now very, very familiar with the good virtues, character, humility and intellectual competence of Professor John Evans Atta Mills in spite of all the negative campaigns the NPP have been waging against him. For a fact, Ghanaians now know that Professor Atta Mills is not as sick as we the NPP wanted them to believe. They also know that Professor Atta Mills has what it takes to become the next president of Ghana.

It is now time for Nana Akuffo Addo to also tell Ghanaians about himself and let them know how long he has been smoking WEE and or sniffing cocaine. Ghanaians also want to know whether Akuffo Addo is associated with, or related to Raymond Amankwaa, an international narcotic drug fugitive. Last but not the least, Ghanaians want to know whether Akuffo Addo did impregnate a teenager and then caused an abortion to be made or not. These are reasonably honest questions and so Akuffo Addo must speak now or forget it.

The old adage says that coming events cast their shadows. Prior to the NPP’s presidential primaries Nana Akuffo Addo, declared during one of his campaign rounds that SE ABA NO KULUULU AMBA MUA, MENA MEDI. Literally meaning that, “I would emerge the winner if the NPP Presidential primaries were devoid of any cheating and fraudulent maneuvers”.

The underlying inference of Akuffo Addo’s assertion is that (1) his party, the NPP accommodates fraudulent and mischievous practices in selecting their leaders. (2) That, some people from his party, the NPP, have in the past succeeded in employing such fraudulent and mischievous practices to steal elections. (3) That, he Akuffo Addo knows the various types of fraudulent and mischievous practices (Kuluulus) which can be used to steal the outcome of an election at any given time.

As it turned out during the controversial NPP primaries, Akuffo Addo employed a peculiar version of the Kuluulus, as he puts it, to steal the outcome of the NPP Presidential primaries from Alan Kyeremateng by clandestinely conspiring with Lord Commey to create a pandemonium which effectively created an instant hatred and contempt against Alan Cash and his teaming supporters.

Under this pretexts, every peace loving Ghanaian, and or observer, who has been following political developments in Ghana in the recent past, and more specifically, before and during the not-so-peaceful, and unimpressive, NPP presidential primaries will be concern about the possibility of NPP rigging the 2008 elections in Ghana by creating similar versions of Lord Commey’s electoral pandemonium and thereby plunging our young democracy and hard won stable political environment into chaos.

Series of events and disclosures of electoral fraud and corrupt pre-voting maneuvers leading to the NPP delegate congress, coupled with the blotting of the voters register mainly in the Ashanti region should themselves be enough to raise alarm about the prevalence of electoral fraud by the NPP. What is more worrying is the declaration by President Kuffuor that he will hand over power to Akuffo Addo when the presidential elections are not yet held. All these should be enough warning for Ghanaians to be concern about the premeditated outcome of election 2008. On the broader scale, the recent political electoral events in Nigeria, Kenya, and most recently Zimbabwe at a time when the Kuffuor led NPP government has messed up so badly that they would want to hold on to power just to cover up their mess should again be a great cause for concern to all peace loving Ghanaians.

It even becomes more troubling and a necessary source of worry, when one connects the dots regarding NPP’s electoral history as conventional wisdom demands. I am inclined to believe that not many Ghanaians have forgotten how the late Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia’s Progress Party (PP) which gave birth to the NPP was infamously creamed and over-rated by the late Lieutenant General A. A. Afrifa and his military junta who conspicuously aided and abetted the PP/NPP to rig the 1969 general elections in Ghana. No wonder, the same “tribal tree of discord and division” that brought the PP/NPP to power was the same tree that fell on them to collapse their government later in 1972. Again, the events that led to the split and formation of the late William Ofori Atta’s (Paa Willie) UNC party in 1978/9 is equally fresh in the minds of Ghanaians.

Another source of concern is the UP/PP/NPP’s track records of intimidation, violence, and above all assassination of their perceived opponents. Ghanaians still remember what the UP/PP/NPP tradition did to Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and his supporters from Kulumbungu, to Paga, all the way to Asesewa and Accra. The same strategy of character assassination, blackmailing, and ultimate assassination they used against Dr. Nkrumah and the CPP is what they are using against Rawlings and the NDC, Thus the NPP guiding principle is, has always been “give the dog a bad name and hung it”.

What is even more compelling and troubling, and which should be the greatest source of worry to Ghanaians as far as the outcome of the 2008 election results are concern is the kuluulu scheme employed by the NPP during the 2004 general elections when the NPP at their “Kuluulu” best, (to use Akuffo Addo’s own words) criminally declared themselves winners long before the polls were tabulated and officially announced by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) which is the sole institution that is constitutionally mandated to conduct elections and declare results under our democratic dispensation. If the NDC leadership at the time had not exercise political maturity and foresight, the repercussions for that irresponsible act by the NPP would have been disastrous for the entire country.

In that unfortunate episode, even though millions of NDC members, supporters, and Ghanaians in general were prepared and ready to vent their displeasure and disapproval through a well coordinated and sustained protests and civil disobedience, which would have eventually forced the NEC to declare the NPP’s unconstitutional announcement null and void, the NPP got out of the hook mainly due to the magnanimity of Professor John Evans Atta Mills who placed the overall stability of the country well above that of his personal electoral victory by conceding defeat even though developments later proved that he actually won the 2004 Presidential election.

Perhaps the difference between 2004 and 2008 is that this time round, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) which is by far the only Ghanaian political party with the largest number of members and supporters has made it sufficiently and categorically clear that if the NPP dare to make any fraudulent announcement ahead of the official announcement by the electoral commission, the NDC would also declare victory and take measures to legitimize its claim as the ruling political authority in Ghana for the ensuing four years beginning January 7 2009.

One major source of concern is that most, if not all of the current regional and district Directors of the National Commission for Civic Education, a supposedly constitutional independent body, which is supposed to be non political state institution mandated to educate the electorates about their democratic rights and responsibilities, are active, card bearing NPP members.

Research has revealed that before he became Prime Minister, Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia was the head of the National Center for Civic Education and instead of disseminating official government policies; he used state resources at the time to pursue his personal agenda thereby taking undue political advantage over his contemporaries. This was subtle electoral fraud at the highest level. And the NPP takes inspirations from this sort of tactics.

The unpleasant event which characterized the run up to the NPP’s Presidential primaries at the University of Ghana, Legon when at the eleventh hour, Lord Commey maliciously made an unsubstantiated bribery allegations against Allan Kyeremanteng and his team of supporters who were on the verge of winning the primaries is still fresh in our memory. Lord Commey by that singular NPP inspired KULUULU exploitation, succeeded in fraudulently changing the outcome of the primaries for the benefit of the toothless and drug addict Akuffo Addo. This orchestrated diabolical acts of dishonesty and corruption against Allan Cash is so fresh in our memories that no matter the amount of noise being made by Dr. Arthur Kenedy, we the core Ashanti caucuses of the NPP party see it as an insult to our sensibility and Akuffo Addo will surely pay for such acts of dishonesty he orchestrated against Allan Kyeremateng come December. By denying Allan Cash the Vice presidential slot, Akuffo Addo has unequivocally incurred the displeasure of the Gods of we the Ashantis. Nana Akuffo Addo must know that in the absence of a three piece suit, or a top and down dress, the only option is skirt and blouse as far as the Ashanti votes are concerned. A word to the wise is enough!!

Asante Kotoko, SE WOKUM APEM A, APEM BEBA!!

Fredy Briston