Akufo-Addo – the saviour that Ghanaians have waited so long for

By Kofi Amenyo

At long last, the people of Ghana will live in prosperity. It was long in coming but the wait was worth it. Let the huzzahs continue.

You see, things under Mahama had gone so terribly bad that any change at all could only be for the better. And who better to supervise that change than Nana Akufo-Addo, the most astute, most experienced and most incorruptible politician our country has ever seen? There is no politician today in Ghana who can hold a lamp to his face! He achieved the impossible task of being a top politician in a corrupt society like Ghana but never pinching even a pin that belongs to the state.

His die hard supporters have always known of his sterling qualities. It is only those NDC thieves and the stupid ethnocentrists who did not know it. Thank goodness his detractors got it wrong. I now believe those who put their trust in him. The againstfuo ani awu!

Nana will surely deliver. Our dear country is on the threshold of a glorious future. Everything talks for it. Just wait and see. Akufo-Addo is up to the task. He has been practising for the Presidency for a long time even testing how to ride in motorcades long before he was elected. He is ready. Just look at the evidence to see what good fortune our country has struck at this moment of its history.

Akufo-Addo is already a rich man. He was not trying so desperately to become the president of Ghana in order to make money for himself. At 72, he is at an age where he is thinking more of his legacy than the trappings of the presidency. Such a man will be selfless in his duty to mother Ghana. I won’t be surprised if he donates his salary to a fund that will be used for development projects. After all, there are many freebies at the presidency that will be more than enough for his modest needs.

Since he cares so little about wealth, he will occupy the moral high ground which will enable him control his ministers and make sure they do not use their positions to acquire too much wealth. He will see to it that his ministers declare their assets on assuming and on leaving office. They say he is intolerant but he will use that characteristic to sack any minister he suspects of a whiff of corruption. His will be a “reign of steel rather than of stealing”.

Akufo-Addo was born a dadaba but he has toured all the regions and seen at first hand (deigning to even eat kenkey by the roadside and sit in a trotro) how the other 99% of Ghanaians live. It is because of their sorry plight that he has sought for the presidency for so long. No, it is not an ego thing! He was Nkrumaist in his youth and has socialist pretentions that he cannot easily discard.

Despite his party’s ideology of a “property owning democracy”, he will make sure that the less privileged in society are never left behind in the great rush for personal wealth.

Akufo-Addo is not a man who will surround the presidency with his tribesmen. Oh no, not him. He knows better than that. He will not mind, for one moment, the fact that he did not get many votes from certain tribes. What kind of a statesman will he be if he punishes a tribe for not voting for him? Great leaders do not succumb to such petty vindictiveness. At long last, all the ethnic groups of the country will get their fair share of national posts and jobs.

The Ewes and Northerners will no longer dominate and take the jobs that rightfully belong to others. What a relief! He will be a father (or, rather, grandfather) to all in deed and not only in words. The greedy cormorants for office who know the patronage trough is now empty and must be filled and are flocking around him will be in for a shock.

Akufo-Addo has promised a factory in every district, free secondary education, a dam in every northern village and one million dollars (not cedis ooo…) to every district. He will surely do all these things. He knows his promises are feasible. He has it all worked out perfectly. You wait and see…

As for what his opponents said about his personal character, he has forgiven them all. So magnanimous is his heart. They said he is arrogant but those who know him well will tell you he is as humble and as down to earth as good old Abraham Lincoln and no less wise. They said he smoked things in his youth but that was long ago.

Why should we hold the misdemeanours of a long past youth against him? They also said he likes women. C’mon! What can he do with them at his advanced age? He will be too busy transforming the nation that he won’t even have time for them. And, anyway, why should we deny him the pleasures of a young woman warming his old bosom now and then even as King David did?

His detractors even cooked up scandalous allegations of his not having a law certificate or properly qualifying for the bar. What arrant nonsense! This man who can be counted among the best legal brains the country has ever produced! The fact that he lost his law certificate does not mean he lost his legal brains.

Thank goodness, now that he is president, that issue will be finally laid to rest. And so what if he got Third Class in Economics? They even accused him of being too short. My goodness!!! As for those who said he is too old and sickly, I can assure them that, Insha Allah, he will outlive many of his obituarists!

After transforming Ghana in the 18 months that he promised, Nana will still be left with two and a half years to consolidate that transformation. This will surely give him another four years of great work for mother Ghana at the end of which he will sit back in his old age and look with satisfaction upon a job well done!

Akufo-Addo’s greatest strength is, without a doubt, his Christ-like nature. This is a man who publicly declared (all die be die) that he was ready to lay down his very life so that Ghanaians will forever live a better one. What more sacrifice can we ask of a leader? What greater love can a man have for his fellow man than a readiness to die for him?

I have hope for my country. With this scrupulously clean man who is as honest as the light of day, a man of stainless purity whose political life is as spotless as the driven snow, a man of unflinching purpose, steering the affairs of our beloved country, I can now sleep comfortably at night – very comfortably.

Oh, I can’t wait for the day of judgement … oops, sorry … day of inauguration …

Writer's e-mail: kofi.amenyo@yahoo.com