The mark of a true gentleman is the willingness to admit one’s fault or mistake. The willingness to stick to one’s words, no matter the circumstances is also a mark of a true statesman. Any person who denies what he has said earlier on for fear of what others will say about him forfeits his chance of being classified amongst the group of statesmen. Fear is one negative trait that will forever deny a person the quality of righteousness or patriotism. But courage was revered by the ancient sages and is still a special quality revered by mankind throughout the world. In other words, if you should see a man of valour, you have already seen a courageous man and a patriot. “Show me a man living in fear, and I will show you a wicked man. And show me a righteous man, and I will show you a bold man.”
The Vice President, Mr. John Dramani Mahama is someone I strongly admire, for he is a gentleman to the core, no doubt about that. He is one of the few strangers in Jerusalem or the contraption called the Nefarious Destructive Cancer, whose character traits are the direct anti-thesis of what the nefarious contraption stands for. Even though, he sometimes goes overboard to engage in the politics of vilification, the few times he went that path, he did so with such finesse that one found it extremely difficult to decipher what actually he said or did. It is like the Akuapems abusing you in the words, ‘Mepa wokyew se woye aboa” (I am sorry to tell you that you are an animal). It takes you some minutes of reflection before you come to terms that the person has called you an animal! Not an insult, one might say.
It is in this regard that I call on the Vice President, Mr. John Dramani Mahama to clear the air on the allegation by agents of destabilization to the effect that the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is a cocaine addict. If the Vice President is sincere to himself, his conscience and to the God Almighty whom we all serve he should be bold to either confirm or deny what he said some three or four months before his selection as Running Mate to then Candidate Atta Mills. He admitted at that time when one journalist put the question to him. He said the allegation of Nana Akufo-Addo and drugs is not true and that it was in bad taste. He was asked what would happen to Ghana’s image, if after the allegation against Nana, he was eventually elected President. John Mahama spoke his heart out and said Ghana’s image would be dented. These were the utterances of John Mahama, now Vice President of the Republic of Ghana.
Mr. John Mahama is still with us. Let us, including journalists from the stable of The Lens, the Ghanaian Democrat, The Palaver, Radio Gold and others ask the Vice President, Mr. John Mahama whether he did not exonerate Nana from the allegation of drug usage. His answer would put paid to any subsequent new attempts to link Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo with drug usage.
But how did this allegation on the use of drugs by Nana Akufo-Addo come about? That allegation was first levelled by Kofi Wayo who based his source from “dem say, dem say”,” akee, akee”,” yese yese”. He alleged it was Ken Kuranchie who told him about it but in an open confrontation with the Wayo man, Ken vehemently denied discussing the use of drugs by Nana with the latter.
I have dealt with attempts by some elements in the NDC to link Nana with drugs,(even though such elements know deep down in their hearts that that what they allege is not true)before and I will do it again and again as long as agents of destabilization exist in our midst. Readers should go to The Statesman newspaper of Tuesday, February 5, 2008 and read my piece titled, “Watch out! These People are serial liars!!” Some of the points/ideas are reproduced here for your pleasure.
Who is this Kofi Wayo of a man? To those who don’t know this chain smoker, a little introduction will do. This man is an opportunist, who, after sojourning in the United State, Chicago, in particular, allegedly dealing in drugs and arms returned to Ghana and lied to people living in Nima and its environs that he was touched by their plight and was going to establish factories to offer them employment. He claimed he had brought a lot of money to assist the poor and the unemployed.
He also publicly announced that when he returned to Ghana, he made numerous attempts to see ex-president Rawlings {then in power} but was denied access to him. It was candidate Kufuor who agreed to meet him. That informed his decision to join the NPP.
He became a parliamentary candidate on the ticket of the party. He contested the 2000 parliamentary elections and alleged that he was kidnapped, tortured and beaten by agents of Rawlings security apparatus, the commandos, to be precise. He thought it was chop-chop as he was getting through his illicit dealing in the U.S. When he realized that he could not bamboozle the Kufuor’s government into giving in it to his intimidations and blackmails, he made a u-turn and made all sort of ridiculous allegations against the Government.
We have not forgotten the allegation he, Kofi Wayo, levelled against a top member of his party, the moribund United Renaissance Party, in connection with his ‘stolen dollars’- an allegation which was later found to be untrue.
All these go a long way to show that he is not a person to be relied upon. Can he, Kofi Wayo tell us the nature of his job in the U.S.? Was he into drugs? We would like to know. Let us not forget the meaning of his name. The word “Wayo”, if translated literally means fraudster, trickster, crook, con man and 419. This is a man who has infested his brain and system with a lot of smoke that he can hardly think like a normal human being. Do we have to rely on what this confused man tells us? Kofi Wayo has made some serious and damning allegations against the Minister of Energy for importing crude oil at an exorbitant rate and pocketing the excess. What action has been taken against the substantive Minister? The President has not acted on Kofi Wayo’s petition because the President knows truly well that there was no substance in the allegation and that Kofi Wayo is not a man or of truth. If we treated his allegations against the Minister of Energy with scorn, why should we rely on his allegations against Nana Akufo-Addo?
Now this Wayo of man comes to tell us that the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party is a cocaine addict and challenges him to go for a medical examination to determine the amount of cocaine in his system.
Haba! It is only a person of demented mind that will throw such a challenge and expect his victim to fall for it. I am glad Nana and the party did not fall for such bait. We will never give the Wayo man the opportunity to achieve his sinister motive which he cannot achieve on a genuine political platform. If he claims he has evidence, let him provide the relevant evidence, not the person who is being accused.
As soon as the Kufuor’s government came to power, the contraption called the Nefarious Destructive Cancer made it the duty to level one accusation after another against top members of the NPP without providing any iota of evidence. I feel this was very unfair.
Just before the December, 2007 NPP congress, Nana Akufo-Addo was alleged to have impregnated an under-age JSS student. He was alleged to have carried out an illegal abortion which resulted in the death of the girl.
The pro-NDC papers carried these stories with glee. This was later found to be untrue and the one who started it all apologized to Nana. There is also the perception that Nana is arrogant and hot tempered and will plunge the country into chaos if elected President. Yet, nobody, and I mean nobody, has come out with a clear case of arrogance against him.
When the NDC exhausted all the ammunition in its armoury, it resorted to Kofi Wayo to do the hatchet job for them. I have refuted allegations of drug charges against Nana Akufo-Addo before and I will do it again and again as long as elements of destabilization exist in our midst. The allegation is nothing but a figment of the perpetrators demented minds and brains. If they are accusing him of some wrong doings, they have to supply the facts. It is not the responsibility of the victim to give the ammunition to perform their nefarious activities.
It is like going to fetish or juju man to accuse another of wrong-doing. The accused insists that he is innocent. Shouldn’t the juju man be the one to prove to every one present that, indeed, the person is guilty? The juju man should exhibit the potency of his medicine in different ways. He could use his powers to make the victim confess or in extreme case, kill him/her.
We know in all sincerity that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo- Addo is not a drug addict. If Kofi Wayo and the rest claim that they knew all long that Nana was into drugs, why did they keep it to themselves until now?
The stories making their rounds in the pro NDC papers allege that Nana Akufo Addo was busted for possession of cocaine in the United State. When he was questioned, the papers alleged he claimed that it was for his personal use. One paper even went to the ridiculous extent of stating that ex-President Kufuor had to step in to get his Foreign Minister off the hook.
Now, the posers: How did they come by this information? Was it in the newspapers or on air? Could they make the relevant and authenticated documents available for our perusal and informed judgement? Wouldn’t it have made the news if a serving Foreign Minister from African country had been caught with cocaine in his hand luggage?
Now, from the pro NDC news papers, Kufuor so much hated Akufo- Addo’s presidency. If it were so, wouldn’t Kufuor have been so happy at the prospect of Akufo Addo’s arrest, which invariably would have eliminated him from the presidential contest?
Now, knowing the zeal with which America is fighting the drug war, do you think, they will let go a top member of an African country’s government caught trafficking in it? We should not overlook the fact that the United States had committed her troops to Panama to arrest the Head of State of that country, General Manuel Noriega, and taken him to the United States for trial. If they could do this to a Head of State, what couldn’t they do to a mere Foreign Minister from an African country?
Medically, we know something about withdrawal symptoms. There were times when as Foreign Minister, Nana would be aboard the plane for hours. Also during UN meetings, especially when he Presided over he Security Council Meetings during the escalation of the Arab- Israeli conflict, could Kofi Wayo and his bunch of destroyers tell us how and when Nana got the stuff to use?
These are posers, the informed public would like answer to: Sometimes, I wonder what those making such illogical and inconsistent statements take us for. We are neither morons nor ‘mumus’. So they should be careful anytime they come up with their nonsensical allegations.
The other time, the Deputy Minister of Works and Housing, Hannah Bissiw was on air and shouting herself hoarse. She alleged that Ursula Owusu is the girl-friend of Akufo-Addo and she is making all this noise for the cocaine dealer, cocaine inhaler and wee smoker to become President of this country. Where else in the civilized world, apart from Mills’ Ghana, will a Minister of State make such reckless or irresponsible statement and expect to remain at post? Why should the President not ask her to provide evidence so that the Nana could be arrested and prosecuted? But till date, the President has not deemed it appropriate to sanction her for her unguarded statement. Not even a verbal reprimand!
Similarly, we have also heard that she, Hannah Bissiw was the girl-friend of the Vice President and that she had also slept with Dr Don Arthur on countless occasions, but as decent people, we have not made an issue out of it, because there is no evidence to corroborate the facts and we do not thrive on rumours. Shikina, that is the end of the matter. Period!!
It is pertinent at this juncture to state that that the New Patriotic Party of which Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the Presidential Candidate did its best to contain the drug business or trade. There were major challenges, but under the circumstances in which we found ourselves, I believe in all sincerity that the Kufuor’s administration was zealous in the fight against the eradication of the seemingly booming drug business in the country. The methods adopted might not have met the expectations of some Ghanaians, but make no mistake about it, the government did its best. The Government came up with Operation West Bridge which saw the collaborative efforts between officials from the Narcotics Control Board and the British Intelligence Unit. This led to the arrest and prosecution of many drug-offenders. The Kufuor’s Government of which Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was a member came up with a policy not to grant bail to any drug offender.
But alas, on coming to power of the NDC, people convicted in drug-related cases were given official backing to appeal against their conviction. The Attorney General’s office sent some junior lawyers to argue the cases in court. And today, such people are enjoying their ‘illegal’ and unjustifiable freedom – all thanks to the generosity of the NDC. It is therefore no wonder that Ten (10) Ghanaians were able to slip through our security cordon with their loot of cocaine and it needed the extra-vigilance of the US immigration and custom officials at the John Kennedy Airport to apprehend the culprits. And this was after the President had given strict instructions that all persons, including those who use the VIP and VVIP Lounge should be searched. The President and some of his appointees might be keen, just as ex-President Kufuor and some of his appointees, including, Nana Akufo-Addo and others were keen on fighting scourge of the drug trade. It was a pathetic sight to see the President in exasperation complaining bitterly to the US Ambassador about how disappointed he was after getting authentic information that some of his trusted appointees had been compromised in his efforts to rid the country of the drug menace.
This is the issue we must discuss in detail, not attempts to malign the name of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, a statesman who has carved a niche for himself by dint of hard work. Whoever heard of an accused person being asked to provide evidence in order to exonerate him/herself? Didn’t the President order the termination of appointment of the Chief Director and the Principal Accountant at the Sports Ministry on account of their failure to produce evidence to buttress their allegation against Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak? Did the President, like his predecessor, John Agyekum Kufuor not ask the two to produce the evidence before he would order an investigation into the case? And yet we have people in this modern Ghana, who have no sense of history asking Nana Akufo-Addo to submit himself for a blood test. The President should have ordered the arrest and prosecution of people like Hannah Bissiw and Kofi Wayo whose reckless utterances are likely to cause fear and panic in the country.
A Goldfish has no hiding place, and in Ghanaian politics, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo is the goldfish Yes, a man of impeccable character, Nana is the statesman who has the qualities of a king, but has chosen to walk on the side of the road. Yes, Nana’s performance at the Foreign Ministry can hardly be equaled by any other Ghanaian. He never took per diem during his tenure at the Ministry. The cocaine tag is a ruse by detractors who find it extremely difficult to understand the man they call Mr. Fix it. What is it that he cannot fix? The Economy, Sports, International Relations, Your Life? These are not impossible objectives for they lie within his grasps. Nana believes that with God all things are possible and this has been his guiding principle in all his life. Just give him your support and a new chapter will be written in your life. It will be a Chapter of Hope, Success, Prosperity and Victory. And this is why we are calling on you to embrace the tenets of Vision 2012.
“Together, let us work to build a strong, free and vibrant nation that we can leave to our children with pride and set an example, not just for our age but for the ages”
With Vision 2012, we shall move this Nation Forward.
Yeeko yanim; Won ya wor hie; Miyi nna ngo; Zaa mu gaba. God Bless You.
Daniel Danquah Damptey (danieldanquah_damptey@yahoo.com)