Web Master
A few months ago, nobody would have stretched his prescience to envisage the possibility that, under a Nana Akufo-Addo leadership, a time of national reformation that he promised, in three presidential bids, we would be discussing the reality of the institutionalization and the serial hijacking of public service jobs by a cult of the well-connected.
He was widely regarded as a firm, stern, honorable man. Akufo-Addo, we were told by his supporters and members of the New Patriotic Party, was the only person who has the temperament to steer Ghana towards rectitude.
Since the birth of his administration, he has made the accusations against his predecessors of turning their governments into family and friends a child play. From ministerial, to deputy ministerial to heads of public institutions, to boards, president Akufo-Addo, has his family members everywhere.
I am not a sooth sayer, nor a prophet, but considering the kind of vindictive politics, we do in this country, most of his family members, will either be prosecuted or persecuted, when the NPP, leaves office.
Ibrahim Mahama, was a successful businessman, even before his brother became vice-president and subsequently president. Today, with the exit of his brother, everything he did, even prior to his brother becoming president, is coming back to haunt him.
He has only committed one crime, and that is, his senior brother, became a president.
The level of vindictiveness and persecution, associated with a government that is filled with family members, only goes to establish one fact and that is, politicians, when in power do not think rationally.
Some former appointees are being chased everyday, for no wrong done. It is showing them, where power lies, but as it is said, what goes around, comes around.
The day of reckoning for Akufo-Addo’s family is coming very soon. He might think, he has power and can appoint even toddlers in his family can hold public appointment.
The situation has gotten worse to the extent that, wives of his cousins, have also joined the dinner table.
The following are president Akufo-Addo’s peerless record in nepotism.
President Nana Addo, appointed Ken Ofori Atta, his cousin, Finance Mininster.
Nana Akufo-Addo appointed Samuel Atta Akyea, his cousin, Minister for Works and Housing.
Nana Akufo-Addo, appointed his protégé, Akoto Ampaw, as Special Prosecutor.
Nana Addo, appointed his tribesman, Yaw Osafo Marfo, as Senior Minister.
President Akufo-Addo, appointed his alleged former girlfriend, Ursula Owusu Ekuful, Minister of Communications.
Nana Akufo-Addo, appointed Kwesi Amoako Atta from the Eastern Region, as Minister for Roads and Highways.
President Akufo-Addo, appointed his cousin, Nana Asante Bediatuo, as Executive Secretary to the President.
Recently, the finance minister, Ken Ofori Atta, appointed his brother’s wife to the deputy position of State Insurance Company. The list just keep getting longer, with no end in sight.
No Ghanaian leader has pushed nepotism this far. No Ghanaian head of state since Independence has had the shamelessness to embarrass himself on this scale.
None of them deigned to turn the rare privilege of holding the highest position in the land into an excuse to openly prioritize their family and friends in appointments –like Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
The president has the constitutional power to staff the executive branch of the government. That is not in doubt. But it is a most embarrassing trivialization of that power; the most extensive vested in one office in Ghana, for a steward of that authority, a person elected to exercise it on behalf of the generality of Ghanaian people, to make it an instrument for advantaging only his family and friends.
Nana Addo’s overreach in nepotism is mind-boggling. It beats common sense. And it is reflective of his lack of bigheartedness and narrow field of vision, important factors that will guarantee his underachievement as president.
It is sheer foolishness for a president with a constituency of over 27million Ghanaians to make his inner circle, the sum of the capacities of some of his friends and relatives.
Nana Addo’s inner circle ought to reflect the riches and diversity of Ghanaian talent. His reduction of the presidency to a family affair is self-deprivation.
With a crowd of family members at the center of his presidency, he is without a healthy debate climate and multiform perspectives.
He is at the mercy of the groupthink of his relatives and friends, people whose over familiarity with him and sense of entitlement, would be a liability.
But he does not care, because he is the Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces and can appoint anyone, he deems fit.
I weep for his family members, they should enjoy the limelight, whilst they have it. Tomorrow, when the New Patriotic Party is no more in power, and they have lost all the trappings that, comes with it, they will face the wrath of Ghanaians.
In this country, once power changes hands, whether former appointees do wrong or not, the new government pursues them like common criminals. They are subjected to the most inhumane treatment, as it is being meted out to Ibrahim Mahama.
The offices of Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), suddenly become their place of work, where they are made to report every day, to answer one question or another.
The 2.25 billion dollar bond that, his cousin and finance minister, Ken Ofori Atta entered into, will never go away, it is a sword of Damocles that will forever hung around his neck.
Damn all the consequences, the president doesn’t care, he will keep appointing his family members, because it is their time to ‘chop’, but he should remember the day of reckoning await them all.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings