Akufo-Addo Needs Kufuor

… to win 2016 presidential polls

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the twice defeated presidential candidate of the biggest opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s quest to win the presidency would be a mirage unless he seeks the support of Ex-President John Agyekum Kufour. Political watchers have asserted.

According to them, the former President has large followers which go beyond the gate of NPP, therefore, Nana Akufo-Addo, the leading contender in the current presidential race for the party’s flag bearership for 2016 polls, cannot underestimate the vast political experience of Mr. Kufour.

It would be recalled that Akufo-Addo, who was the Minister for Justice and Attorney General, fell out of favour with the former President Kufour when the two personalities clashed at the NPP special delegates conference in 2007 over which candidate would occupy the National Chair of the party. Our intelligent sources revealed that president Kufour did not take kindly to that and has not forgiven his pal since then. As a result, the brotherly love between the former President and Nana Akufo-Addo, suffered huge collateral damage and the two paddies went their separate ways. The two political demigods in the NPP, since then, hardly see eye to eye.

The feuding has become so endemic in the party that supporters of the onetime pals no longer trust themselves and this sometimes leads to violent clashes at party functions and gatherings.

Although John Kufour and Akufo-Addo do not attack themselves openly, the behaviours and utterances of their large supporters expose the ill-thinking the two leading party big-wigs harbours towards one another. Interestingly, both political stalwarts have different traits. Whilst president Kufour is a conservative – ‘that is chameleon type of behaviour’, Nana Akufo-Addo is radical. These have manifested in their followers on various platforms in the country.

The noiseless hostility between the two leading giants of the biggest NPP is in no doubt hitting the party hard and thwarting its electoral chances in general elections.

Many political observers held the view that the two painful defeats, the NPP has suffered in 2008 and 2012 in the parliamentary and presidential elections in the hands of its arch rival, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), was due to the endless raging conflict.