Akuffo-Addo’s Financial Woes May Stop Third Attempt

Very credible sources within the Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo’s United Kingdom camp have exclusively revealed to us reasons why the New Patriotic Party, NPP’s 2012 presidential candidate seems to be hesitant on his political future in the party especially on whether he should make a third attempt at leading the largest opposition party in 2016.

Nana, as the two times loser in the last two elections, – 2008 against late President John Evan Atta-Mills and in 2012 against incumbent President John Mahama – has been under intense pressure from his supporters to make another attempt at leading his party into battle again.

According to our sources, though it might seem to the clamouring legion of supporters that outwardly he is ambivalent on the issue many of them have forgotten that he has twice experienced the financial implications of running a proper presidential electioneering campaign.

“Many of his supporters, especially the ordinary people do not understand how much is involved in putting yourself up to run for the presidency. If you do not have deep pocket financiers and bankrollers, it will be difficult for your voice to be heard and in a factionalised party like the NPP, he will have to show his financial muscle.

“In his first campaign, he had the state apparatus behind him because of incumbency, it was easy for him to campaign around the country yet he still lost to the more formidable and committed party but cash-strapped National Democratic Congress, NDC.

“In the last election in which he invested so much not only financially but psychologically, the election in which all party big wigs scraped the bottom of the can to finance yet he still lost has not sat down well with the investors in his failed presidential ambition,” the source added.

Making references to what could be easily seen as his financial commitments to the cause of being president was the sale or lease of his late father, President Edward Akuffo-Addo’s now demolished hotel called …. the land which is home to the French multinational banking group, Societe General. The bank has since built an imposing headquarters at the Kokomlemle, Accra, site.

The source also mentioned other properties in the United Kingdom which Nana Addo had to dispose off to finance his failed campaign whose theme was ‘Free SHS.’

“The primary reason (why he cannot raise any or much finance from the United Kingdom) is that he liquidated some of his fixed assets to finance his campaign in the 2012 election, a situation that has left him with few or no assets to dispose of in this instance,” our source revealed.

Our UK source further gave another example of the financial toll the historic eight-month long petition took on his pocket.

Readers can recall that in the wake of the monumental and humiliating defeat Nana, as he is affectionately called by his supporters, filed a petition at the Supreme Court challenging both the conduct of the election and the declaration of the incumbent as the winner.
After eight months of a historic legal tussle, the Supreme Court by a majority decision ruled and declared the incumbent President Mahama as duly and legally elected.

That case that kept Ghanaians glued to their television screens daily saw a battery of lawyers representing the plaintiffs – party chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, General Secretary …. Owusu popularly called Sir John and Nana.
According to our source since not many in the party supported the move to challenge the election in court, it was left for only Nana and a few of his die-hard supporters to bear the cost of paying the legal team that represented him.

Though his stature in the party could still motivate some financiers, other sources say the bankrollers are beginning to suffer from what the source called ‘donor fatigue.’

“They have invested in the same product there seems to be no returns coming in and many are therefore doing a re-think on the feasibility of gambling on him again now that even the campaign promise of free SHS which nearly won them the presidency has been adopted by the ruling NDC government.

“This coupled with the seeming rift and factionalism that has virtually split the party into two regional blocs is discouraging many of the party’s financiers but it is early days yet, and as he promised when he arrived from the UK, he will make his decision known after consulting the party leadership,” the source concluded.