Ms. Elizabeth Akua Ohene, former Minister of State in Charge of Tertiary Education in the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration has slammed President Akufo Addo for not fulfilling his promises to Ghanaians.
“For someone who is so keen to be seen as a deliverer, our President is running late with one promise. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said he would try and give two press conferences every year. Here we are, almost at the end of September, and he has not yet given one press conference this year,” she wrote in a statement published online today September 27, 2019.
Already, there is a pervasive social media trend where people are tagging scams to regular acts of deception perpetrated by Ghanaians and politicians.
According to the former minister, she took note of this clear breach of promise when she noticed that President Akufo Addo has been answering important questions of national issues only on his foreign trips, including the recent damning “mistake” answer to queries about why his government let off the notorious Chinese illegal miner, Aisha Huang.
Ms Ohene also questioned why President Akufo Addo chose Angola as the venue to explain his administration’s reported involvement in the US$ 1 billion Power Distribution Services (PDS) scandal.
“We all knew what his government thought and said about the PDS brouhaha because his Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, kept us abreast of the details. But when Mr President went to Angola, he spoke publicly about the PDS and we heard from the horse’s own mouth what his thoughts were on the subject. The PDS controversy had been raging for almost a fortnight before the President went to Angola,” Ms Ohene wrote.
Ms Ohene was expressing views that appear to have resonated with several others in the country. Critics are pointing out the increasing alienation of the President from issues happening in the country.
“This President of ours unnerved everybody at a press conference last year when he answered a question put to him by simply saying he did not know. That certainly was not part of the normal script. Presidents don’t usually say they don’t know something, they are supposed to know or pretend they do even when they don’t,” the article by Ms. Ohene read.
She particularly noted how bodyguards of the President pummelled one Solomon Owusu who asked the President the uncomfortable question on illegal mining during the President’s Speech at the Rutgers University in New York.
“…Then now we have Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who has spent a lifetime in the rough and tumble of courtroom drama and the even rougher field of competitive politics, I can’t imagine that he would shy away from difficult or inconvenient questions. Which is why I am unimpressed with the incident that took place at the entrance to the President’s speech at Rutgers last Saturday when a Ghanaian young man said he was denied entry to the event and has posted a video of his complaints,” Ms Ohene stated.