Akufo-Addo’s health alert; scheduled for treatment abroad

The health of the incumbent flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, may have relapsed, sending worrying signals through his campaign, the Republic newspaper has gathered.

Hints picked up by this newspaper indicates that the over 75-year-old aspiring presidential flagbearer of the NPP was last Tuesday taken under medical observation at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

Sources told this paper that Akufo-Addo stayed at the premier hospital overnight. According to unconfirmed reports, doctors at the hospital advised him to be flown out of the country for better attention to his alleged heart condition.

The octogenarian flagbearer hopeful of the NPP is said to be due for a surgery in November 2014. This will almost be immediately after the opposition party’s October 18 national delegates’ congress to elect its flagbearer in a contest where Akufo-Addo is tipped as the clear favorite. Sources close to the ailing flagbearer told this newspaper that he would be abroad for three months. The source however denied he was going for medical treatment.

Due to Akufo-Addo’s reported deteriorating health, his campaign scope is said to have been adjusted to reduce pressure on him; his running-mate, Dr. Mahmud Bawumia is said to have been tasked to handle his campaign in the Volta Region and the three northern regions while he [Akufo Addo] handles the remaining six regions.

This is a clear variation from his presidential campaign prior to the 2012 general elections where he virtually toured every nook and cranny of the country personally soliciting for votes.

According to party sources, supporters of John Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanteng; his closest rival in the flagbearership race, know Akufo-Addo’s health condition and had hoped to exploit it to their advantage by heading to court to force the delegates congress to be shifted to November where they knew he would not be in the country. Unfortunately, the court threw out the suit, citing those who brought the writ before it as not being bonafide members of the NPP.

While Alan Kyeremanteng is barely 60-years-old, Akufo-Addo is fast becoming an octogenarian at over 75. His critics have said his age will work against him going into the October 18 national delegates congress of the NPP to select its flagbearer.

Akufo-Addo has contested the position twice and has gone on to lose at the Presidential election to candidates of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The rift in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is getting dirtier by the day as Akufo-Addo is being forced to make public his local and international medical records for the point of his inability to stand for the party’s flagbearership on medical grounds to be.

Leading the crusade for a full disclosure of Akufo-Addo’s medical records is the NPP Member of Parliament (MP) for Nhyiaso, Dr. Richard Wilfred Anane- A strong supporter of Alan Kyeremanteng.

Dr. Anane, a key member of the Alan John Kwadwo Kyeremanten campaign, said the medical reports of Akufo-Addo will vindicate him in the event that Nana Addo dies mysteriously.

Inside the NPP, there have been claims that Nana Addo has a kidney problem and even recently went abroad for medical treatment. During the Election Petition hearing at the Supreme Court, Akufo-Addo is said to have abandoned the case and traveled abroad for medical treatment.

He was reported to have collapsed at home once and rushed to Akai House medical facility at Osu in Accra. He was later transferred to Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for treatment, from where he begged the nine Supreme Court Justices to allow him travel to London for medical treatment.

Dr. Richard Anane argued that when the records are made available, they would be kept for the future, so that in the unlikely event that something happens, it could be verified that indeed, whatever happened was natural or unnatural.

“I said that issue will end in court. The reason why I am saying this is that me, I was trained as a doctor and everyone knows that by training, every doctor will wish to be blessed with knowledge so that he can save lives…,” he recently told a local radio station.