Castro Trumps Akufo-Addo’s Ghanaian Detractors

Those of us who have been studiously following the eventful political career of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, at least since 2007 – some of us have been doing so since a bit earlier – are well aware of the fact that the steep climb higher up was made even more difficult and complicated, ironically, by his own fellow travelers whom we would, ordinarily, be facilely inclined to assume or expect to be fanatically smacked in his corner or take for granted. But, of course, the path to Jubilee House of this former Foreign Minister in the government of former President John Agyekum-Kufuor was absolutely no cakewalk, in traditional African-American parlance. But, of course, those of us who have been studiously engaged in mapping out the age-old animus and running internal political fissures within the Danquah-Busia-Dombo-inspired New Patriotic (NPP), were always well aware of the fact that much more visionary politicians and statesmen and women from without/outside the country were poised to envisage much more poignantly, the talent and inimitably progressive vision of the now-President Akufo-Addo from a far better vantage point than the overwhelming majority of the uncomfortably close ideological associates of the man.

So, I am not the least bit surprised or flabbergasted to learn that as far back as 2006, when the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice was his country’s Chief Diplomat, or Foreign Minister, immortalized Cuban leader Fidel Castro had fervently predicted, during an informal conversation that the two had, that the man whose own father was once Ghana’s Ceremonial President was destined to become his country’s Executive President, in turn, someday (See “Fidel Castro Predicted I’ll Become President of Ghana – Akufo-Addo” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/5/19). It was all just a matter of time; and when it did come to pass, as Nana Akufo-Addo had occasion to recently confide to his Cuban friend and counterpart, to wit, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, while on a business visit to that globally most famous Latin-American Island Country, it was simply a blowout. Obviously, it was not what both his internal and external detractors had hoped and/or expected. By external detractors is meant the key operatives of the party of Nana Akufo-Addo’s main political opponents, namely, the Jerry John Rawlings-founded and led institutional juggernaut called the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in much the same manner that one would mention President Kim Jong-un’s Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) or, until very recently, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); and as diametrically opposite to the Veritable Democratic Republic of Ghana (VDRG), when used in this column from time to time by yours truly.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be wasting my time writing reams about the political predictions of an admittedly genius revolutionary dictator like Fidel Castro, in pretty much the same way that I wouldn’t be writing extensively or at length about Ghana’s first postcolonial leader; but these two personalities are kindred souls who had had nearly equal seismic impact in the respective parts or regions around the globe where both proudly rode their thoroughbred political steeds with flair and fanfare, swank and swagger, if there ever were any such sequential combination of descriptive nouns. You see, it also turns out that when the future President Akufo-Addo was a young man – perhaps in his early teens (at least I saw the picture in a whatsapp post that a relative recently dispatched to me) – then-President Kwame Nkrumah also, reportedly, told the eldest son of then-Justice Akufo-Addo that he was also, like the protagonist of Ghana’s immediate postcolonial era, destined to become “King” one day.

So, really, it was President Kwame Nkrumah who first recognized the “Commander-in-Chief” leadership qualities and skills in the “Greatest Dwarf” or is it the “Giantest” or “Most Gigantic Elf” in Ghanaian history and political culture of the Twenty-First century. So, in short, that makes two, and from two of the greatest leaders of our time. You see, when you have these two giant forces as winds behind your sails, as it were, trust me, you can never go wrong or get it “unright.” Absolutely not!

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
April 27, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]