Celebrated Ghanaian MC, Kwesi Kyei Darkwa, has spoken about his loss of faith and disillusionment with his icon of 35 years – Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Making an incursion into the current public discourse, KKD, as he is affectionately called, tells state broadcaster, GTV, that these days when he sees Akufo-Addo all he feels is shame.
And his shame, he says, stems from the fact that Akufo-Addo gave many a lot of hope with his promises from the opposition only to become president and fail all expectations.
“I have seen governments stay in government and go into opposition. And I have listened to their rhetoric and my job is rhetoric. I have all those recordings, I can play them back-to-back and contradict them and see how we promised, how we told people ‘yete sika so nso, ekom de yen’. When I listen to that now, and I look at Nana Addo, a man I have personally admired for over 35 years, I feel shame,” he said.
He adds: “I feel shame because some of his coteries should have sat around him and said ‘Opanin, because of this, let us divert this, let us avert this, let us do this”.
Mr. Akufo-Addo had in 2017, entered office as a president with a lot of goodwill with many looking forward to him leading a promised transformation of Ghana from an agrarian economy into a production-based one with weaning from supposed excessive borrowing.
Akufo-Addo had also promised to fight corruption and deal with appointees who involve themselves in graft.
Four years down the line, a “one district, one factory” promise has hardly changed from rhetoric to reality. Rather, a cottage industries owned by individuals have had some money lent to them and presented as factories.
After four years, Ghana’s first Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, declared Akufo-Addo as the “mother serpent of corruption” and fled the country for his life after he directly exposed the President for being involved in the infamous Agyapa Royalty corruption that attempted to hijack Ghana’s mineral royalties for a few faceless individuals with interests hidden in tax havens.
The President’s nephew and the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is the main spearhead in the Agyapa corruption. There are speculations that he is actually fronting for the President himself.
The government has since generated the highest number of corruption scandals; has borrowed more than every government in the history of Ghana and has plunged the country into a debt conundrum that has led to galloping inflation and hardships.
Amidst it, the government has been the most abusive of human rights and has become a danger to press freedom, while the president has become a personification of complete moral turpitude with sex scandals including one allegedly resulting in him ordering an armed robbery hit on his ex-girlfriend in search of sex videos capturing him in the act.
There is another allegation that he defiled and impregnated a 14-year-old child some years ago.