Akufo-Addo, Jake approve of Sir John’s illegal Dec. 8th declaration

Millions of Ghanaians would remember that on Saturday December 8th 2012, the General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Lawyer Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie (aka Sir John) declared after a peaceful, free and fair election that the NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo had won.

Many discerning Ghanaians then criticized the NPP‘s General Secretary, for his action; that his declaration of NPP as victorious was not only affront to the peace and stability of the nation at the time, but also aimed at usurping the authority of the Electoral Commission (EC) as the only constitutionally mandated body to declare the winner of elections in Ghana.

Even though, Sir John was heavily condemned for his verbal diarrhea (talking by-heart), it has now emerged that it was Nana Addo and the certificate-less Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, who asked him to go and declare the NPP and for that matter, Nana Addo as winner.

This evidence (with all apologies to Dr. Bawumia) can be found in the newly-released autobiography of a founding member of the NPP, Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, titled “NEVER SAY DIE”.

According to Dr. Nyaho Tamakloe, he was shocked that Sir John's behavior could go to such an irresponsible extent, as calling elections in favour of the NPP, when larger chunk of results from the NDC’s strongholds was outstanding.

“When results started pouring in, nothing really seemed unusual. I was, however, concerned that the NDC did not appear to be doing badly in the NPP strongholds. As well, the small parties were virtually being rendered inconsequential by a leakage of votes to the NDC and NPP, in a manner that appeared to favour the NDC.

“We all waited with bated breath and tried to make sense of the figures, analyzing and re-analyzing performance, in Greater Accra; it all looked bleak as the coastal constituencies fell one by one to the NDC, though the NPP held its own in the Tema constituencies and some of the inland constituencies. Despite the challenges the NPP faced in Greater Accra as a result of divergence in opinion on strategy, the results seemed to be way off from reasonable expectations”, Dr. Tamakloe pointed out in his book.

“I was, however, taken aback when on Saturday 8th December, 2012, Kwadjo Owusu Afriyie, the NPP General Secretary, called a press conference to declare the elections in favour of Akufo-Addo, urging NPP supporters to attend church in white the following day to celebrate the NPP’s victory. By this point in time, a large chunk of the results was outstanding, and I noted with some puzzlement that the outstanding results were predominantly those of known NDC strongholds in the three northern regions.

The NDC held a tenuous lead by this time, and logically, could be expected to increase its tally as votes from their strongholds came in. Therefore, Afriyie’s call was hasty unless he was able to proffer cogent reasons for this: But even more importantly, the NPP General Secretary’s call was most ill-advised and followed a dangerous precedent.

On the issues of Jake and Nana Addo’s approval of Sir John’s declaration, Dr, Nyaho Tamakloe stated clearly that; “I placed a call to NPP Chair Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey to ask him if the party had approved of Owusu Afriyie’s press conference. Jake, sounding tired, curtly responded in the affirmative. When I complained to him that this was unseemly, he asked me if I did not see the NDC doing the same thing.

I told him truthfully that I had not, and that even if that were the case, the NDC was not necessarily a trendsetter for the NPP. Jake had had enough, and asked me to suit myself. He then hung the phone up on me”.

Dr. Nyaho Tamakloe, in his book, made known how the above-stated mistake led to some level of tension between him and Jake, to the extent that Jake studiously avoided him at the funeral of former Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama.

This unacceptable conduct of Sir John, made Dr. Nyaho-Nyaho Tamakloe, to rate him far below that of his predecessors Joseph Agyenim–Boateng and Dan Botwe.

“Very early in his term as General Secretary, I had cause to comment in the media that Afriyie needed to leave the activism to his subordinates and withdraw from “the frontline of fire”.

Beloveds, the above is what Dr. Tamakloe has documented in his newly-lunched book titled “NEVER SAY DIE”; of how Sir John receives the blessings of Nana Addo and Jake, to do the illegality on Saturday December 8th, 2012.