Nana Addo’s Men: Friends Or Foes?

In recent times, the attitude put up by some New Patriotic Party (NPP) big shots who held key positions in the party’s 2012 campaign for Nana Addo has brought to the fore, the curious question on whether they were friends who whole heartedly worked for Nana Addo to win presidential victory or they were rivals who harbored the same presidential ambition he was nursing and therefore worked as foes to let him down as a matter of strategy.

These strategic-rivals, were part of those complaining of a so-called ‘Akyem Mafia’ around Nana Addo in 2008 and succeeded, in 2012, in getting him to dissolve and block out some of the key persons in the so called ‘mafia’. Interestingly, the rivals who took over the campaign did not only mafia the party members; Nana Addo himself was the worst hit casualty.

Kofi Konadu Appraku

Dr. Kofi Konadu Appraku, a key player in the Nana-Addo 2012 campaign was speculated to be campaigning for a 2016 presidential ambition even when the Nana Addo campaign was in full swing. Though there was empirical evidence to back this claim, it could not have surfaced from ‘venus’ as a fairy tale.

The same Dr. Appraku has finally confessed he has the same ambitions Nana Addo was and is having. Dr. Appraku says he wants to be the NPP Presidential candidate for 2016. Dr. Appraku has confirmed this in a statement issued by his ‘aide’, a certain Odaimon Kwadwo Abobra.

It is curious to know how long Dr. Appraku has nursed this ambition. Even before JA Kufour became president, Dr. Appraku did not hide his interest in the presidency. Fortunately he was not pivotal in the JA Kufour 2000 campaign and Kufour won. Appraku contested Nana Addo in 2007, had some embarrassing 17 votes or less out of some 600, became key in Nana Addo’s campaign in 2008 and Nana Addo lost.

In 2012, Appraku again played a key role in Nana Addo’s campaign and again, Nana Addo lost. Then Appraku pops up and announces he wants to replace Nana Addo for 2016. And he is a friend who wanted Akufo Addo to win 2008 and 2012. Maybe he had shelved his ambition by then because Nana Addo was a friend.

This same Appraku who DOES NOT want to drag the NPP’s name into disrepute and public ridicule has told the whole world, in his press statement that some party members had unleashed their “rented press” and “some snake-tongued persons within the party had been hired” to detract him from his presidential agenda. Appraku says these ‘party members’ are persons who feel threatened by his decision to contest Nana Addo for the party’s flag-bearer post. Impliedly this was done by his rivals….Nana Addo, not excluded.

Sir John Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, the party’s general secretary is one ‘friend’ of Nana Addo who in his attempt to ‘please and do Nana Addo a lot of good’, decided to compromise the neutrality of the party’s executive by going public with his unnecessary statement that Nana Addo would contest 2016. Why show your bias and make people question it when you could have done so behind closed doors? What a friend? Until the party recently secured a place for Sir John to lay his head at night, he was lodging at the Kofi Osei Ameyaw owned Royale Mirage Hotel. The least said about the type of meetings that were held at that hotel, the better. After all it is not hidden anymore that Kofi Osei Ameyaw, himself, also has the same agenda 2016 ambition.

Kofi Osei Ameyaw

The difference is that Osei Ameyaw’s agenda 2016 is not for Dr. Appraku or Nana Addo. It is for himself!!!

That then brings into question how long Osei Ameyaw had nursed this ambition. He was part of Nana Addo’s kitchen cabinet that planned to get his allies contest for executive positions in the party. Osei wanted to be National Treasure. He did not make it and since then, little was seen of him in the 2012 campaign.

Jake Obetsebi Lamptey

Jake, a party chairman stands akimbo and silently observes with a grin the unfortunate internal party mudslinging against senior captains. Jake seem not to understand that though the ongoing attacks and counter attacks may well satisfy the petty parochial political interests of a few selfish minds, it would also certainly have an adverse impact on the already challenged party unity.

It is this passive attitude of Chairman Jake that raises the question whether ‘there are no elders in the house’. When we ask if there is no elder in the house, we are not meaning an elder who is aged in years, we are referring to a mature brain and a concerned heart who can call the warring factions to order and drum in to their heads some common sense that party should and must be put first, before individual interests.

This is a party chairman, who instead of working towards the party’s internal unity thinks it is in Nana Addo’s interest for him to also display his bias and favoritism towards him to the vexation of several important party big shots. He won’t even take responsibility for the party’s inability to win elections but says he wants to contest again to remain party chairman.

Nana Akomea

Which Director of Communications who knows his left from his right would be openly contradicting and disagreeing with his party’s General Secretary right in the media.

A Director of Communications who was quick to abandon his post, even before he was asked to. As if the position was causing some injury to him so he was in a haste to relinquish. Perhaps, the chips are down now that the court case is over so there is no need to hang on. Nice Friend.

TO BE CONTINUED…

The campaign manager Boakye Agyrko who also wants to be president, the Lord Commey who thinks the job of Campaign Director of Operations means following the candidate from village to village, the Gabby Otchere Darko who is good at strategies for Ghana’s minority elite but a disaster at understanding the language of the masses and, the vanished Boniface Sadique, the nowhere to be seen Hajia Alima Mahama the Kennedy Agyeapong who thinks talking loose is what sells Nana Addo would be treated in next edition.