Akufo-Addo does not know how to win political power - Dr. Nyaho Tamakloe

Even though the 2016 elections is about eighteen months away, a founding member of the opposition New Patriotic Party, Dr Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe, has predicted another excruciating defeat for the party’s twice defeated presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

According to the NPP firebrand, unlike former President John Agyekum Kufuor, the NPP’s 2016 flag bearer does not know how to win political power, revealing that recent developments in the party under the leadership of Nana Akufo-Addo show clearly that the NPP cannot win elections under him.

“Look, let me give you one example, there is a sharp difference between the way Kufuor campaigned and…you know, I will always stand up for Kufuor, Kufuor knows how to get political power, he knows exactly how to manage people. If you ask Kufuor to lie-down so that you walk over him, he will do it because he understands what politics is and he knows how to get political power,” Dr Nyaho stated.

Commenting on a recent leaked tape attributed to a former Finance and later Education Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo, on Radio Gold morning show hosted by Alhassan Suhuyini, the former ambassador to Serbia noted that Nana Akufo-Addo’s loud silence on such tribal statements dims the chances of the party winning political power.

“…when these sought of utterances are being done in secret, then it is very disturbing and I would say that this sought of statements rather draw us back from power. As a political power, these statements draw us back from power because we need people to vote for us to be able to win election in this country.

If we continue with these sought of statements, I don’t believe we shall ever come close to power at all… and this is my own belief, I strongly believe what I have said and I am not going to shut up and ‘brash’ things under the carpet,” he stated.

The former Akim Oda Member of Parliament was captured on a tape bemoaning why Akan-speaking people, whose regions are rich with natural resources, are not the ones at the helm of managing those resources, saying “…You have all the resources, but you have no say in the management of your resources and that is what is happening. Your development depends on the one who has no resources,” the voice said.

While cautioning the four-time flagbearer aspirant to emulate former President Kufuor, Dr Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe, a former President of the Ghana Football Association added "…but presently, I don’t believe Akufo-Addo understands …I don’t think so because such a statement by now as a leader of the party, he should come out to condemn it, he hasn’t done that so far as I know and I think that is very disturbing to some of us…very very disturbing.”

“When Kennedy Agyapong made a similar statement, I personally wrote to; and statement to the Graphic which was published and a memo to Akufo-Addo telling him some of the problems might face the party with such statement, I thought he would come out to apologize or condemn it but he never did that so as far as I am concerned we have to learn a lot from John Agyekum Kufuor as a political party. I have said time and again that if we sideline Kufuor, then we should forget about power,” he stated.

Osafo Marfo on the said tape stated that, even though about 90 percent of Ghana’s natural resources are concentrated in mainly Akan-speaking regions of the country, it is people who come from regions without resources who are governing the country.

“You can’t say this openly,” he cautioned the Council members, but added that they are at liberty to talk about it among Asantes…We should protect ourselves, we should protect our income. No one who is the source of income, the source of revenue, the source of resources allows another person without those resources the chance [to rule over them]. It’s never done anywhere in the world. In the world over, it is the group with the most resources that rules and not the other way around,” the voice said.

Although he has stated that the tape was doctored, Dr Nyaho Tamakloe insisted it is his voice, saying “As far as the voice is concerned, I have no problem at all that it is his (Osafo Marfo) voice. I know Yaw very well…if these words have come from his mouth then definitely he must have been possessed by gbeshie…what the Gas called gbeshie”