Nana B denies seeking passport favour from Ablakwa

National Vice Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Henry Nana Boakye, popularly known as Nana B, has denied asking Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa to allow him to retain his service passport.

He says the controversy surrounding the passport is being used to divert attention from questions about the alleged GH¢16.4 million spent on evacuating Ghanaians from South Africa.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, Nana B rejected claims by the Majority in Parliament that Deputy Ranking Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Nana Asafo-Adjei, was pursuing a personal agenda against Mr Ablakwa over the passport matter.

The Majority had suggested that Mr Asafo-Adjei’s criticism of the Minister was linked to his refusal to grant a request for a former NPP National Organiser to retain his service passport.

However, Nana B dismissed the claim as “weak, diversionary, unreasonable and a red herring”, arguing that it was intended to distract from concerns about possible corruption raised by the NPP legislator.

He explained that he had held only a service passport, not a diplomatic passport, and surrendered it in accordance with a presidential directive announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to him, his request to Mr Ablakwa was for an official letter to notify embassies that visas contained in his service passport could be transferred to his ordinary passport.

Nana B said the Minister personally asked him to contact Mr Asafo-Adjei to follow up on the letter.

“Okudzeto Ablakwa personally requested that I inform Hon. Asafo Adjei to follow up on the letter, which I did, but after one visit, Hon. Asafo Adjei was informed the letter was not ready; hence, I abandoned it and applied for new visas,” he said.

He maintained that neither he nor Mr Asafo-Adjei had sought preferential treatment from the Minister.

“I never requested to retain the passport because doing so would have been unreasonable as a national executive of the opposition party,” Nana B added.

The NPP official also questioned why the Majority had displayed the biographical data page of his service passport, which he said was in the custody of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Turning to the evacuation of Ghanaians from South Africa, Nana B accused the Majority of attempting to shield Mr Ablakwa from scrutiny over the reported GH¢16.4 million expenditure.

He argued that the concerns raised by Mr Asafo-Adjei were based on information provided by the Foreign Affairs Minister himself and should not be dismissed as a personal disagreement.

“The majority should not take discerning Ghanaians for fools by suggesting that a member of Parliament’s exposition on possible corruption to the tune of GHS16.4 million, based on data submitted by Okudzeto himself, is a personal vendetta,” he said.

Nana B called on the Majority to demand explanations from the Minister over what he described as serious inconsistencies in documents relating to the evacuation expenditure.

“President Mahama promised Ghanaians accountability, and the majority should call Okudzeto Ablakwa to answer the serious inconsistencies in the documents submitted regarding the expenditure on the evacuation of citizens,” he said.