He contested John Agyekum Kufuor in 1998. The New Patriotic Party was then seen as divided into a Kufuor camp and an Akufo-Addo camp. Yet, Nana Akufo-Addo, at the risk of abandoning some of his loyalists who claimed to have suffered victimisation as a result, after first going around the country to campaign with the winning candidate he went ahead to serve him loyally as a minister of state between January 2001 and August 2007.
He stated, "No Minister has been more loyal to President Kufuor than me. But, it was not the individual Kufuor I was serving. I was serving the Danquah-Busia tradition - its history; its promise, its values. I was serving mother Ghana.? Nana Akufo-Addo said this at a huge campaign meeting in Koforidua to remind his detractors that he could never be the one to split the party as some are alleging.
?They said the same thing about me leading up to the Sunyani congress in 1998. But, immediately after I lost to Kufuor, I was the first to grab hold of the microphone and appeal to the party for all of us to unite behind the choice of the congress for the 2000 battle ahead.?
To thunderous applause, Nana announced, ?I want to make a pledge to you now. Once I win I do not intend to pick and choose and bother myself with who voted for me and who didn't. Everybody in the party, who has something positive to contribute to make the party and country succeed, I will work with you.? He was addressing over three thousand party members, including constituency officers, polling station chairpersons and opinion leaders drawn from 10 constituencies who gathered at the Hotel Eredec at the final stage of his second nationwide tour on Wednesday.
Nana added, "If the NPP is looking for a true blue party man and a unifier then that person is me and I have the track record to show."
He repeated the same message he has taken across the country in the last two months or so. A true blue NPP man, he says, "Is not a person who just acquired our party card. We"re not carpet baggers. We?ve been in this party through thick and thin."
Nana Akufo-Addo described NPP as a party of wise men and women, dispelling fears that the party will disintegrate after the December 22 congress to elect a flagbearer for the 2008 elections.
He said the party has a tradition of electing its leaders and has never faced any such problem, saying "whether we are 100, 20, 10 or 2, only one will be selected as a flagbearer and we shall come out as united as before." On December 22 every candidate is a "potential winner and a potential loser," Nana Akufo-Addo said, but declared that the one to be elected must be a winnable candidate in the 2008 elections.
He urged the delegates to make it 'One Touch? in his favour, citing his wealth of political experience, international exposure, and selfless sacrifice to party and country as the marks of the kind of political leader needed to take over after President Kufuor. Nana Akufo-Addo pointed out that a person with an intimate link with the past can better protect Ghana?s democracy and push forward the twin interest of party and country.
He predicted that NPP will by all means win the elections under his leadership, adding that even the NDC, including their flagbearer John Atta Mills knows this. The Abuakwa South MP urged the Eastern Regional executives to work very hard to capture the six seats in the Region won by the NDC in the 2004 general elections.
The Eastern Regional Secretary of NPP Alecs Agobo recalled that it was Nana Akufo-Addo who introduced the polling station executive system in the NPP and facilitated the establishment of the Fast Track Court system. He had earlier served as National Organiser, and also led the Kumi Preko demonstration together with Kwesi Pratt, Wereko Brobbey, Kweku Baako and others.
