Agyapa Akufo-Addo Needs to Think about His Legacy and the Greater Good of Ghana

For the 8-plus years that he frenetically campaigned to be elected President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana, My Dear Uncle Kwaku A/Oyokoba Willie Akufo-Addo touted his “I Believe in Ghana” mantra, deafeningly, almost to the extent of nauseating, as an unimpeachable anthem that uniquely qualified him for the job which his late father, Chief Justice Edward Akufo-Addo, had once only ceremonially and nominally held as the right-hand man of the late Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia. These days, though, it well appears that his “I Believe in Ghana” mantra or credo has been suavely transformed – or actually distorted – into “I Believe in Ghana but I Trust Cousin Ken Even More.” At least this was the impression that his flat and stubborn refusal to remove a grossly mediocre, at best, and a scandalously incompetent Mr. Kenneth Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, peevishly conveyed to those of us who have staunchly backed his presidential ambitions from Day One.

On the whole, it can scarcely be gainsaid that Nana Akufo-Addo has handily outperformed all his four predecessors, although one also gets this wistful feeling that the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice is very content to complacently mirror the sort of tacky nepotism that a politically shameless President John “Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor doggedly and adamantly pursued during the 8 years that the largely self-infatuated and “diplomatically” boastful wet-eared Deputy Foreign Minister in Dr. Busia’s Progress Party (PP) government held at the helm of the affairs of our Fourth-Republican dispensation. In the sphere of leadership caliber and style, Nana Akufo-Addo cannot be legitimately or aptly described as one who is any significantly different from any of his four predecessors, except, of course, when it comes to assessing his performance at the level of the material and the general socioeconomic development of the country.

Warts and all, in terms of the quality-of-life situation of the average Ghanaian citizen, the former Foreign Minister is easily in a class all by himself, the torrents of complaints and criticisms all across the country notwithstanding. For there is perception and then there is the practical reality on the ground. As well, his yeomanly and historically unprecedented ability to definitively resolve the Yendi Chieftaincy Feud is one that even so staggered his immediate predecessor as to make Mr. John “Akonfem-Kanazoe Ouagadougou” Dramani Mahama farcically and sheepishly claim before Ya-Naa Abubakari Mahama, II, that his successor’s decidedly inimitable stroke of nonesuch genius in bringing peace and stability to the Ancient Kingdom of Dagbon was wholly the handiwork of Divine Providence, an act and a lurid statement of heinous blasphemy of the highest order that prompted the furious Supreme Overlord of the Great Dagomba Kingdom to disavow the name “Mahama,” which the Ya-Naa at the time shared with the West-Gonja native from the old township of Bole-Bamboi, in the Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region.

Unfortunately, the former New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa-South, in the Eastern Region, appears to be hell-bent on committing the sort of political suicide that eerily threatens to drown out his sterling achievements in the areas of healthcare, education, agriculture and transport and communication. Now, somebody very close to the ears of the grandson of the immortalized Osagyefo Nana Sir Ofori-Atta, I, had better rudely tweak them and alert this otherwise very progressive and visionary leader and tell My Good, Old Uncle Kwaku Willie to pay religious attention to the divinely imbued Voice of the People, especially the collective Voice of those well-wishers who twice swamped the polling booths all across the country to confer on him the desperately sought title of Chief Resident of Jubilee House.

There is this recent egregious faux pas that Nana Akufo-Addo committed but has since apparently taken the wise counsel of some of his closest associates to rather admirably, albeit partially, correct. But, of course, the dirty and ugly scar tissue still remains in hearts and minds of his most ardent supporters. It has to do with the downright inexcusable decision to name an already overwhelmed and bumbling Mr. Ofori-Atta as Caretaker Minister of Trade and Industry, in the wake of the widely anticipated resignation of Mr. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen, the career sector minister who never really creditably acquitted himself in this most significant portfolio. Then again, maybe it was Nana Akufo-Addo’s symbolical way of indicating, upfront or in a sort of in-your-face gesture, the fact that Alan Cash, as Mr. Kyerematen is popularly known, never really significantly contributed to the quality of his government (See “Social Media Users Slam Akufo-Addo over Ofori-Atta’s ‘new’ Job as Trade Minister” Ghanaweb.com 1/7/23).

I have said this many times before and here again repeat the same, that Alan Kyerematen was very likely a strategic compromise cabinet appointee in a Mafia-type deal that was conveniently struck between the key operatives of the Kufuor-Mpiani and Akufo-Addo factions of the New Patriotic Party. You see, My Dear Cousin Kwadwo Kyerematen was never a perfect fit for the job, at least not under the command of the “Little Man from Kyebi” who twice roundly defeated this “Abrasive” and “Megalomaniacal” Giant and Cousin of former President Agyekum-Kufuor and the dynastic favorite of the Asante Mafia, actually the Kumasi Mafia, who traitorously vacated his front-row seat and prime membership of the New Patriotic Party, because Mr. cash could simply not abide being so soundly defeated by the man he had been facilely hoodwinked into believing he could easily trounce in the party’s heavily and filthily “dollarized” presidential primaries.

And, by the way, I also vehemently disagree with Mr. Kow Essuman, described by the media as Nana Akufo-Addo’s lawyer, that the interim or acting replacement for the departed Trade and Industry Minister could legally not have been one of Mr. Kyerematen’s two, or so, ministerial deputies. You see, these statutory laws are never etched in stone, as both Mr. Essuman and Uncle Kwaku Willie both seem to believe. As Jesus, The Christ, of Nazareth emphatically once observed: These laws are made for our convenience, not the other way around.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
January 25, 2023
E-mail: [email protected]