Akufo-Addo tries to flee

…from his bohemian image of sex, cocaine & wee

In a desperate bid to avoid another defeat in the 2012 elections, NPP flag bearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, has decided to flee from his bohemian image and personality of sex, cocaine and wee.

This was made clear last Saturday, June25, 2011 during Radio Gold’s Alhaji & Alhaji programme when, making his contribution during the panel discussions, Samuel Abu-Jinapor of the Akufo-Addo Campaign Team tried to forcefully drive home that the 2012 elections will not be about the personality of the respective flagbearers but rather about the programmes and policies of the parties, particularly the performance of the Mills Administration.

This assertion came as a surprise not only to his co-panelists but some listeners of the programme because the NPP, over the years, have preferred to concentrate their campaigns around the personality of the flagbearers of their opponents rather than issues and programmes.

Interestingly, Samuel Jinapor himself confirmed this when he said in the run-up to the 2008 elections, he refused to accept the view of an older member of the party who opined that the elections were about the NPP’s performance as the party in government rather than the personality of the then Candidate Mills.

He again confirmed the personality politics of his party when he said he did not agree with Koku Anyidoho, Prof. Mills’ Communication Director when during a panel discussion in the run-up to the 2008 elections, he (Koku) said that the elections was not about Prof. Mills but about the NPP since it was the party in government. Jinapor said on hindsight, he agrees with the Communications Director that it was the NPP that was on trial as far as the 2008 elections was concerned.

Samuel Jinapor an aspiring lawyer therefore argued that just as the 2008 election was not about the personality of the candidates but the performance of the ruling party, so is the 2012 elections.

This attempt to shift the focus of the electorate from the personality of the flagbearers of the contesting parties, particularly the NDC and the NPP to issues did come as a surprise to many because the NPP flagbearer’s personality is nothing to write home about and was responsible for the NPP’s loss of power to the NDC in the 2008 elections.

After the NPP had won the first round of the elections held on December 7, 2008, the need for a second round of voting arose since the NPP was unable to obtain the minimum of 50% + 1 votes needed by a political party to win the elections.

The second round of the elections was a straight fight not between the NPP and the NDC but one between Akufo-Addo and Prof. Mills; it turned out to be a total mismatch.

Akufo-Addo’s hot-headedness and violent personality in addition to his bohemian lifestyle of, sex, cocaine and wee was obviously no match for Prof. Mills’ pacifist image that earned him the title Asomdwehene and ‘Mr. Clean’.

As a result, the Prof. flattened Akufo-Addo, bridging the 150,000 votes gap and winning the elections in spite of the over 100% voter turn-outs in some NPP strong-holds, particularly in the Ashanti Region. It is for this reason that the NPP flagbearer and his campaign team will be anxious to make issues and not personalities the central theme of the 2012 elections.

One of the panelists on the Alhaji & Alhaji programme, Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jnr., Managing Editor of the INSIGHT newspaper, when he took his turn, argued that the 2012 elections will not only be about issues but the personality of the flagbearers as well.

He expressed dismay about the strategy of the Akufo-Addo campaign team especially with regards to the kind of people who accompanied the NPP flagbearer on his recent trip to Germany.

Alluding to Russian leader, Boris Yeltsin whose advisors advised him against being seen drinking even water in public because of the perception that he was a drunkard, he wondered why certain individuals in the NPP should be in the Akufo-Addo campaign team let alone accompany him on his trip to Germany.

To reinforce his argument, he said in politics, perceptions can be as strong as realities and thus, a politician accused of being a womanizer should not even come close to a brothel to lend credence to the perception that he is a womanizer if he does not want to be seen as such.

Mr. Pratt was obviously referring to the presence of Yaw Amfo-Quakye, a convicted drug-trafficker in the Akufo-Addo Campaign Team who accompanied the flag bearer on his trip as well as the presence of Ursula Owusu on the same trip.

Akufo-Addo’s bohemian lifestyle is an open secret with claims of cocaine and wee use being levelled against him not only by his opponents by some of his former close pals.

Allegations that he is a womanizer, with Ursula Owusu being alleged to be one of his numerous concubines, has not been helped by his own frequent use of sexual imageries in his speeches which is unbecoming of a politician seeking the highest office of the land, the Presidency.

The latest attempt by Nana Akufo-Addo to flee from his bohemian personality as seen by the attempt of one of his spokespersons to shift the focus of the electorate from personalities to issues only is certain to be treated with contempt by an electorate which is clearly aware that issues of national security, stability and welfare hangs mostly on the shoulders of the personality who is President of the country.