Nana Akufo-Addo, Once A Nonentity, Now A Nuisance - Part 1

Ages before becoming a political candidate, there was a scant rumor that
Nana Akufo-Addo was using illegal drugs but the story was discounted as he
was then a political nonentity and, even if it was true, he was one of many
Ghanaians with that habit. It was not until he declared his intent to lead
the NPP and seek the highest office of the land that someone from his own
party admonished that the allegation is a potential hitch. Then, before the
2008 elections, Kofi Wayo, a onetime intimate of Nana, audaciously repeated
the accusation on public radio. There and then, Nana should have fought back
but he similarly discounted it, perhaps with the assessment that Ghanaians
considered themselves forever fortunate to have him as their next president.


As the case stands today, Nana has worked himself into a no-win state. He is
not obliged to take a test to prove his purity as some people are demanding
(it is usually the accuser who has to prove his accusation) but because, in
this case, Wayo has nothing to lose and Nana has all to lose, it is Nana who
has to move. If he takes a fair test on his own volition today and passes,
his opponents will say he only did so after remaining sober long enough to
safeguard that there was no trace of drugs left in him, and if he did not
take a test at all but merely denied verbally as he has done years after the
charge, the stigma will forever follow him like his shadow. In another
scenario, should Nana admit the charge and ask for pardon he will be branded
as a snobbish person who disrespected the whole country and only admitted
his fault when his back was against the wall.

The little face-saving move that Nana can make now, if the accusation is
false, is to take Wayo to court for character assassination and hit him hard
in his wallet. My view is that Wayo has no confirmation to the allegation
but Nana is afraid that going after him might cause even more skeletons in
his wardrobe to be exposed. When Asiedu Nketia accused him of being a quack
lawyer, Nana did not just treat it as a general mosquito bite, rather, his
lawyers were quick to explain how one can become a lawyer without reading
law at a university. When he was accused of being in the company of drunks
to the annual festival in Cape Coast, it took a few days for Ursula Owusu, a
current intimate of Nana, to assert that he has not tasted a libation in the
last 16 years. So as vociferous as Nana and his cohorts are, why did it take
him that long to answer a simple drug use allegation at a time when Ghana
had been ascribed as a major drug transit, a fellow parliamentarian from his
party is locked up in America for drug-trafficking and evidence drugs keeps
disappearing from police custody? And just consider, why will Nana spend all
that time and money in 2008 only to allow Wayo to kill his lifelong dream
with a few sentences?

Whether the charge is truthful or not, Nana has allowed it to be another
strike on his already appalling record. The NPP can only watch helplessly as
it exacerbates his incompetence as a minister, resulting in his inability to
campaign on his record. In any serous civilization a man of his caliber
would hide from public view but some devotees still sheepishly elevate him
as if he is the second coming of Jesus. When he loses again in 2012 the NPP
will then admit that they have allowed themselves to be fooled by a man who
cannot back his words when given the chance but rather keeps condemning
governments that he is not a part of. It is too late now but perhaps the NPP
should have had two leaders – Nana to lead the party and the other to stand
for president. Indeed, Nana is now a nuisance to the NPP.

By VoiceOfReason