Look here Tarzan, Akufo-Addo’s ride is not your business!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe

I don’t know by what measure Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby presumed to carp Nana Akufo-Addo for supposedly riding on the coattails of former President John Agyekum-Kufuor. But it well appears to me that the man who was summarily fired by the proverbial “Gentle Giant” for grossly mismanaging the Volta River Authority (VRA) as Chief Executive Officer is scandalously and, characteristically, shamelessly pursuing the illogic of double standards, for want of a better expression

(See “Akufo-Addo Must Not Ride On Kufuor’s Achievements – Tarzan” 3News.com 8/26/16).

Maybe this political hobgoblin or snake-in-the-grass (in Ghana, we often say “snake-under-grass”) ought to have heard President Kufuor himself commend Akufo-Addo, in the lead-up to Election 2012, for helping to expedite Ghana’s development of the communications industry and technology by introducing the first cellphone company, Novotel, into the country.

Then also, it is an open-secret that Nana Akufo-Addo has done far more and better, legally and legislatively, to advance free-speech rights, both in the media and Ghanaian society at large, than the man popularly called Tarzan can be credited for in critical sphere of the development of the energy industry in the country.

At the VRA, at Akosombo, for example, Dr. Wereko-Brobby was notorious for having spent a sizeable chunk of the Authority’s budget in renovating, refurnishing and decorating his CEO’s bungalow, while diligent workers went without their paychecks for weeks and months on end.

In other words, the so-called Chief Policy Analyst of the Ghana Institute for Public Policy Options (GIPPO) clearly lacks the professional expertise and credibility needed to presume to collar Ghana’s former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice on whose political and/or administrative legacy to latch onto as part of his electioneering campaign platform in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.

After all, who said that President Kufuor was a political phoenix, in Shakespearean parlance, who auto-generated himself? To be certain, in nearly every one of his electioneering campaign tours around the country, Mr. Kufuor had absolutely no qualms invoking and celebrating the achievements and legacies of the seminal leaders of his ideological camp or suasion, namely, Drs. J. B. Danquah and K. A. Busia and, of course, Mr. S. D. Dombo.

And so why does Tarzan expect the protocol to be any different for Akufo-Addo? Couple the foregoing with the incontrovertible fact that the three-time presidential nominee of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was a key player in the Kufuor administration in ways that cannot be said of Dr. Wereko-Brobby, and it readily becomes clear that much of his criticisms of Akufo-Addo emanates from sheer envy and malice.

But, of course, anybody who has been observing our national political landscape for any remarkable temporal span has absolutely no problem recognizing the stark fact that Tarzan is no political and/or professional peer, or classmate, of Nana Akufo-Addo’s.

Indeed, if Dr. Wereko-Brobby sincerely believes that President Mahama has notched enormous achievements in our national culture and politics that ought not to be challenged or questioned, by all means, the long-suspended NDC mole of the New Patriotic Party is entitled to such opinions.

What he is not entitled to is the imperious right to dictate the issue of whether President Mahama’s self-proclaimed or purported achievements ought to be poignantly challenged or applauded.

This is the sort of noble democratic cultural ideal which Nana Akufo-Addo has spent most of his adult life helping to cultivate in the country, which arm-chair socialists like Dr. Wereko-Brobby have a hard time understanding and appreciating.