Nana Akufo-Addo's Pavlovian Slip

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Garden City, New York

June 26, 2014

I have read - at least twice - Nana Akufo-Addo's rather deft and eloquent rejoinder to Mr. Dan Abodakpi's claim, on a radio program, that he knew "for a fact" that then-Attorney-General Akufo-Addo had strongly advised against Mr. Abodakpi's 2007 conviction by an Accra Fast-Track High Court on charges of fraud and causing financial loss to the State; but that then-President John Agyekum-Kufuor, apparently harboring a personal vendetta against the former National Democratic Congress' Member of Parliament for Keta, had ridden roughshod over his legal right-hand man's advisory and gone ahead to personally instigate the "persecutorial" prosecution of Mr. Abodakpi, a former Trade Minister under President Jerry John Rawlings.

What is interesting about the former Attorney-General's rejoinder is Nana Akufo-Addo's patently inadvisable use of the adjective "unguarded" in characterizing what the former New Patriotic Party's Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa South terms as Mr. Abodakpi's "unguarded statement." Well, this is the exact sentence in which the foregoing highlighted word appears: "I am surprised that a senior political figure such as Ambassador Abodapki would make such an unguarded statement."

As an English "instructor," as somebody higher up at the institution where I ply my trade had occasion to contemptuously describe me recently, the use of "unguarded" in this particular context presupposes that, indeed, there is some evidentiary truth to Mr. Abodakpi's allegation; and that, indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo may well have advised then-President Kufuor against following through with the prosecution and conviction of Mr. Abodakpi. "Unguarded" in this context thus clearly means that in his zeal to clinching the national chairmanship of the ruling National Democratic Congress, Mr. Abodakpi has let on a confidential information regarding an event that may well have occurred.

Now, Nana Akufo-Addo may be perfectly accurate in his contention that as an epically embattled defendant in such a high-profile felony case, there was absolutely no way for Mr. Abodakpi to have known that he, Nana Akufo-Addo, had been reluctant to have the former nailed with the unforgiving tacks of the law. But there is also the equal possibility that somebody in the Attorney-General's Department who was familiar and intimate with both Nana Akufo-Addo and the Abodapki docket may well have communicated what s/he credibly perceived to have been the palpable reluctance on the part of Nana Akufo-Addo to follow through with the Abodakpi conviction.

The word "unguarded" also provides a strong and credible clue in the preceding direction. This, however, is not in any way, shape or form to suggest that "setting the records straight" in favor of his former boss is not the right thing for Akufo-Addo to do. To be certain, the former Foreign Minister offers the most eloquent testimony of his widely acclaimed sterling legal professionalism to-date. What the two-time presidential candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party clearly fails to do, is to thoroughly convince his critically thinking audience of the fact of Mr. Abodakpi's allegation being wholly devoid of any merit and/or credibility.

And this is precisely why in my previous write-up on this allegation, I earnestly, and solemnly, admonished the former Attorney-General not to get himself mired in the Abodakpi-Kufuor fray. For "unguarded" only means that Mr. Abodakpi has rather unwisely betrayed the trust of Nana Akufo-Addo who, it is safe to say, may well be a good friend of Mr. Abodakpi's, in much the same way that Nana Akufo-Addo, in a recent tribute, claimed to have been an intimate friend of the late Mr. Paul Victor Obeng's.