Akuffo-Addo campaigns in Dallas

The race for the U.S. presidency took a temporary back seat last weekend to another president’s race that will help determine the future of West Africa.

Ghana presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, currently the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, came through the Dallas area as the guest speaker of a banquet and rally at the Los Colinas Marriot Hotel, an event supported by the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the New Patriotic Party, Ghana’s current ruling party, of which Akufo-Addo himself helped found 15 years ago.

“We will do whatever it takes to get you elected,” said Sam Mensah, a Ghana-American and chairman of the New Patriotic Party-DFW. “We are also ready to come home and be part of the progressive growth of Africa.

Stella Green said of Akufo-Addo, “Nana has a legacy; he is a man of action.”

Akufo-Addo will run in the December 2008 elections with hopes of carrying on the mission of current president John Agyekum Kufuor, a fellow NPP member finishing up his second term in office. As in the U.S., he’ll step down due to term limits.

“You will be glad to know that your country is in good shape,” Akufo-Addo said to the banquet audience. “That doesn’t mean it’s the land of milk and honey. There’s still a lot of hard work to do. We need to continue the progress Kufuor has made during his tenure.”

Akufo-Addo said his party has been instrumental in bringing better human rights and a stronger democracy to the west African nation, since the party has taken majority power from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), it’s chief rival party.

“A vote for the NDC vote takes Ghana back,” Akufo-Addo said. “It’s important that we win.”

Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2003 and Attorney General and Minister of Justice from 2001 to 2003, Akufo-Addo has been in the middle of Ghana’s political scene for three decades, since he returned to country after practicing law for five years in France. He was in the forefront and one of the first Ghanaians to stand in opposition to then president Kutu Acheampong’s attempts to form a one-party state. He is credited with helping force Acheampong out of office in 1979 and restoring multi-party rule.

Akufo-Addo’s father, the late Edward Akufo-Addo, served as Ghanaian president for two years before losing out in a coup in 1974. Involved in some of Ghana’s volatile political phases. He was a member of the Supreme Court who tried historic president Kwame Nkrumah in 1964, drawing controversy as one of the judges who found Nkrumah not guilty.

Professor John Atta Mills, who lost to President Kufuor in 2004, is once again the NDC candidate. According to the Ghana News Agency, Mills criticized the government and NPP for spending $30 million on a presidential mansion while money was needed to help more students gain admission to schools.

GNA reported that Mills said, “Instead of investing more on education to help reduce the burden on parents, the government is spending 30 million dollars on the construction of a presidential palace.”

Professor Mills also accused the government of being arrogant, not accepting constructive criticism. Claims by NPP of the NDC being a violent party were contested by Dr. Sekou Nkrumah, son of late President Kwame Nkrumah.

NPP Party member Charles Biney said at the banquet that Nana Akufo-Addo has followed in his father’s footsteps in a passion to serve his country.

“His demonstrations was not just a tea party,” Biney said. “In the face of death, he never reneged in his fight for Africa and Ghana.”

Akufo-Addo attended a special event in Washington D.C. last month while celebrating Ghana’s 50th anniversary of independence from British rule. The event honored the original members of the 1957 U.S. delegation sent by president Dwight Eisenhower and led by then-vice president Richard Nixon, which included Martin Luther King Jr., former congressman Adam Clayton Powell, ambassador Ralph Bunche and media mogul John H. Johnson. Posthumous awards were presented to the delegates’ descendants, which included Bernice King, Del. Adam Clayton Powell IV, Linda Johnson Rice, Ralph Bunche Jr., Michael Julian Bond and a representative from the A. Philip Randolph Institute.

Akufo-Addo based his platform on continuing to improve Ghana’s standard of living for everyday Ghana citizens and restructuring the economic system to be more industrialized. Energy is an issue. The power deficit supply forces all homes to go into voluntary blackout up to 48 hours a week. Illiteracy is above 50 percent and youth unemployment is high.

He called on help from the Ghana-American and African American communities. “I’ve traveled the world. No matter where you are, as a Black man, you’re still considered a second-class citizen,” he said. “We must find a way where we can branch all of our skills and knowledge and build not only Ghana, but West Africa.”