Prez Mahama bumps into Akufo-Addo at a restaurant

There was an ‘accidental’ brief meeting between President John Dramani Mahama and Nana Akufo -Addo yesterday when the former ‘bumped’ into the NPP Flagbearer and his wife at the Churchill Hyatt Regency Hotel in London.

A source close to the Presidential entourage disclosed to The New Crusading GUIDE yesterday that President Mahama and his team were on their way to the prestigious hotel where they were lodging when he (President) ‘accidentally’ bumped into Nana Addo and his wife, Rebecca Akufo-Addo who were already ‘having a time’ at the hotel.

After a brief‘hello hellos’ between the two gentlemen who are locked in a presidential petition litigation currently ongoing at the Supreme Court, President Mahama, according to the Presidential source, had“a much longer chat with Mrs. Akufo-Addo”. The source, however, could not disclose the subject of discussion between the two as they were a distant away from the others.

The Churchill Hyatt Regency Hotel situated at London West End is known to be the toast of many visiting Presidents to London.

The meeting may be the first time for the two after the December general elections. It also put to rest speculations by propagandists that Nana Addo was bed ridden in London after his aide Herbert Krappa had publicly issued a statement that he was going for “scheduled engagements including his regular medical check up”.

Days after his departure, the General Secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, in a rather jovial but sarcastic tone, wished Nana Akufo-Addo a “speedy recovery,” but said “those who call for ‘all-die-be-die’ need not go to the hospital”.

Addressing NDC supporters at the party’s headquarters in Accra on Monday, June 10, 2013, as part of its 21st anniversary, Mr. Asiedu Nketia sarcastically said: “…Let us also extend our prayers to the Flagbearer of the NPP in the 2012 elections; we’ve been told that he’s not too well; we know that those who call for ‘all-die-be-die’ need not go to hospital, but if they have found it necessary to go to the hospital, then it tells them that they were prescribing a course of action that they themselves didn’t want to pursue”.

“In all that, we still recognise that we are all fallible human beings; we can all fall sick one day, and so we want to pray for his speedy recovery and also pray that when he recovers, he would have the courage to revise that theory of ‘all-die-be-die’; otherwise, if it is a pleasant theory, then when you are sick, it is one form of death, so you don’t need to go the hospital”, he continued.

In fact, the Deputy Information and Media Relations Minister, Mr. Murtala Muhammed, in a media briefing at the Flagstaff House, stated that: “We can only pray and wish him (Nana Addo) well, and I can tell you that this is a sincere wish; this is not a pretentious wish”.

Paradoxically, NDC government and party communicators and spokespersons, it will be recalled, didn’t take kindly to a statement issued by Nana Addo wishing the late President Mills ‘well and speedy recovery’ upon his last ‘routine medical check- up” in the USA.

That gesture was perceived as “malicious and mischievous” by General Mosquito and co. The NDC maintained that Nana Addo’s message was calculated to deepen the public perception that the late President Mills was unfit to run for re-election because the ‘wording’ of that particular statement was crafted in such a way as to lend credence to the rumour that President Mills was indeed very sick. A then Deputy Minister of Information, James Agyenim Boateng, who led the pack, argued vociferously that Nana Addo’s statement could in no way be described as a “good will” message but rather an “ill-will” one.

President John Mahama left Accra last Wednesday for London, at the invitation of the British Prime Minister, David Cameron.

The two leaders held bilateral talks on Friday at No. 10 Downing Street before joining other heads of State and Government at the Lancaster House on Saturday for the G8 Summit on Tax, Trade & Transparency.

Meanwhile, Nana Akufo-Addo is expected back home on Wednesday