Akufo-Addo

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the President of the Republic of Ghana, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, and the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the December 2020 elections.

Akufo-Addo is the son of Edward and Adeline Akufo-Addo, and is recognised to be of political descent, where three close relatives of his were members of the Big Six – also referred to as the Founding fathers of Ghana. They were: his father, Edward Akufo-Addo, who was the third Chief Justice of Ghana and the President of the Republic (1969-1972); his uncle, William Ofori-Atta; and his granduncle, J.B Danquah. 

Akufo-Addo’s public political involvements unfolded in his early thirties as he was engaged in some political activism while serving in some associations. 

He was part of those who spearheaded the pro-democracy movement in Ghana through the People’s Movement for Freedom and Justice (PMFJ), where he served as General-Secretary. 

He is also noted to have established grassroots branches of the Organising Committee of the Danquah-Busia Memorial Club all over the country in 1991, while he served as the Club’s chairman. Akufo-Addo then became the first national organiser of the NPP in 1992 and, later in the same year, he became the campaign manager for Prof. Albert Adu Boahen, who was NPP’s first presidential candidate. Akufo-Addo is also acknowledged to have set up and financed The Statesman newspaper, which is noted to be the unofficial newspaper of the NPP, in 1992.

His political activism continued in 1995 when he led the ‘Kume Preko’ demonstrations by the Alliance For Change (AFC). 

Akufo-Addo contested for parliamentary elections and was elected three times between 1996 and 2008, as Member of Parliament for the Abuakwa South constituency in the Eastern Region. 

Then from 2001 to 2007, Akufo-Addo had some ministerial appointments, serving under the Kufour government as Cabinet Minister, where he was first an Attorney-General and Minister for Justice for two years, and then a Foreign Minister for five years.

Akufo-Addo’s bid for presidency started in October 1998 when he competed for the presidential candidacy of the NPP and lost to John Agyekum Kufuor, who later became president. 

In July 2007, Akufo-Addo won against 16 others for the position of presidential candidate for the NPP for the 2008 December elections; however, he lost the election that year. He contested again for the 2012 national elections and conceded defeat yet again.  

In March 2014, Akufo-Addo announced his decision to run as NPP presidential candidate again for the third time and he was nominated against 7 competitors. Subsequently, in the 2016 elections, he won the presidential elections and was sworn in as President of Ghana on 7 January 2017. 

Besides being a politician, Akufo-Addo is a trained lawyer and economist. He studied law in the UK and was called to the English Bar (Middle Temple) in July 1971 and to the Ghana bar in July 1975. He also studied Economics at the University of Ghana and obtained BSc in Economics in 1967.

Before then, Akufo-Addo received his primary education in two schools: at the Government Boys School in Adabraka, and later at the Rowe Road School, which is currently called Kinbu, in Central Accra. He later went to the UK to study for his O-Level and A-Level examinations at Lancing College, Sussex and returned to Ghana in 1962 to teach at Accra Academy Secondary School.

Akufo-Addo was born on 29 March 1944 in Swalaba. He comes from Akropong-Akuapem and Kyebi in the Eastern Region and was raised in the Ga-Maami and Nima areas in the Greater Accra Region. 

He has four children and is married to Rebecca Akufo-Addo, who is the daughter of former Speaker of Parliament of the Third Republic, Jacob Hackenburg Griffiths-Randolph.

A Facebook user claims Ghanaian President, Akufo-Addo, has criticised the poor state of Nigeria’s economy and security.

Available information so far indicates that no report from Ghana shows Akufo-Addo has made such statements concerning Nigeria’s economy and insecurity. 

Full text

A Facebook user on 5 August 2020, claimed that Ghana’s President, Akufo-Addo, has made statements in reaction to Nigeria’s economy and insecurity. 

He is purported to have stated that the mistakes of Nigeria must be learnt from by Ghana, adding that he finds it hard to understand why Nigerians ‘are not angry enough to change the situation.’

The full statement reads;

We must learn from the mistakes of Nigeria, and never in our entire history be ever so foolish. You cannot declare war on your country and still be enjoying federal allocation as a state except in complicity with the government. The Nigerian government is an ethnic government, not a nationalistic government. WHAT I CANNOT UNDERSTAND IS WHY NIGERIANS THEMSELVES ARE NOT ANGRY ENOUGH TO CHANGE THE SITUATION – NANA AKUFO-ADDO DANKWA, Ghanian President reacting to the Nigerian economy & insecurity

Verification

Background of the Facebook user

Scanning through the Facebook page of the user who made the posts, Dubawa found that according to the bio section, the owner of the account lives in Kaduna, Nigeria.

Further, beyond his post purporting to be a statement by Akufo-Addo, the Facebook user has also attributed statements to other African leaders including President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, and President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphaso, claiming that these presidents are in opposition to the state of Nigeria’s current leadership as a response to the killings in Southern Kaduna. 

Beside attributing claims to presidents, Dubawa noted that the Facebook user has a series of posts, here, here, here and here expressing strong views on Nigeria’s political climate and leadership, as well as condemning the recent killings in Southern Kaduna. 

Identifiably, it is against the background of the political commentaries on the leadership of Nigeria in view of the recent killings in Southern Kaduna that the Facebook user has posted statements purporting to be from some African leaders, including Akufo-Addo, on the subject matter.

The post and claim bear a close resemblance to a similar one which was widely shared on social media and was debunked by Dubawa last year.

Notwithstanding, Dubawa has reached out to the Facebook user to ascertain where such statements purported to be from the President of Ghana were made,  but we have not received any response from him as yet. 

The situation in Ghana

Since the reported date of the killings in Southern Kaduna on 20 July 2020 till date, none of President Akufo-Addo’s official social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram nor website have shown any evidence of the President making any statements concerning Nigeria’s economy and insecurity. 

Additionally, no Ghanaian mainstream media has reported on any such statements purported to be made by the Ghanaian president concerning the state of Nigeria’s recently. 

Dubawa has also contacted the Director of Communications at the Office of the President, Eugene Arhin, concerning such statements purported to have been made by the President, and is awaiting a response from him. 

Conclusion

Information available so far shows that the claim by a Nigerian Facebook user that Akufo-Addo has made statements concerning the economy and insecurity in Nigeria is false. There is no report of Akufo-Addo making such statements in the Ghanaian media. And Dubawa will update readers in the event of new information.

A tribute was read on behalf of Ghana and President Akufo-Addo at George Floyd’s funeral in the US.

No tribute was read on either Ghana or President Nana Akufo-Addo’s behalf at the funeral service of George Floyd in the US. However, the country and its president were acknowledged for the solidarity shown to the family of Floyd.

Full text

Some social media posts shared by some influential persons claim that a tribute was read on behalf of Ghana and on the personal behalf of President Nana Akufo-Addo at the funeral service of African-American man, George Floyd, that was held at the Fountain of Praise Church in Houston, Texas on Tuesday, June 9, 2020.

One of the posts reads: “Tribute read on behalf of @nakufoaddo and Ghana at the funeral of #georgefloyd.” Another read, “Tribute read on behalf of Ghana at the ongoing funeral for #georgefloyd.”

The posts, accompanied by a one-minute-long video clip from the funeral, have reached thousands of social media users already. 

Verification

To verify the claim, we obtained a full video clip of the funeral service as streamed on Facebook by Yahoo News and reviewed the part that mentioned Ghana and President Nana Akufo-Addo. 

At the one hour eight-minute mark, Ivy McGregor, Director for Social Responsibility for Parkwood Entertainment, was invited to deliver “resolutions”. 

She read resolutions from Fountain of Praise Church, Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church, and the 1993 Class of Jack Yates Senior High School. 

At 1 hour 14 minutes, she mentioned Ghana and President Nana Akufo-Addo. We have transcribed all she said about Ghana and President Nana Akufo-Addo below.

[At 1:14:00 to 1:15:00]

Ivy McGregor: “The family of George Floyd will like to acknowledge the message of solidarity, resolution and virtual tribute from His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo, the President of Ghana. Yesterday, during the memorial, a video produced by the people of Ghana was broadcast for thousands of mourners as they paid their final respects to Mr Floyd. The family is honoured by President Akufo-Addo’s decision to have Mr Floyd’s name permanently mounted on the historic Sankofa wall at the Diaspora African Forum in the W.E.B Dubois centre in Africa.

They are grateful that the country of Ghana stands with the Floyd family and the struggle of all families to change the status quo of racism and prejudice. The family is deeply moved by the generous act of the Ghanaian government to solidify George Floyd’s legacy.”

McGregor subsequently acknowledged several individuals and institutions who had also expressed their solidarity with George Floyd. 

To give a better context, we have defined the two keywords in this fact-check; Tribute and Resolution below: 

Tribute: A tribute is a sign of respect or admiration, an award to honour a person’s accomplishments (according to Vocabulary.com).

Resolution: A funeral resolution is a formal acknowledgement of the relationship between the deceased and a church community. It is delivered at a funeral to honour someone who has died by elaborating on his spiritual qualities and good works (according to dying.lovetoknow.com).

Based on the above, it is clear that Ivy McGregor did not read a tribute on behalf of Ghana or on behalf of President Nana Akufo-Addo. She read three resolutions from different groups and only acknowledged Ghana and President Akufo-Addo for the solidarity for George Floyd and his family.

Based on these facts, we conclude that the claim is false.  

The vehicular traffic situation in parts of Accra, owing to poor road infrastructure across the capital, has been a major and topical issue for years. It is unsurprising therefore that news about the construction or renovation of any road network in the country will be a subject of interest. One of such roads that sparked discussion recently is the Tema Motorway Roundabout. 

Why has this roundabout been in the news?

On Friday, June 5, 2020, President Akufo-Addo commissioned the roundabout although it had been opened to traffic since Saturday 16 May 2020. Subsequently, there has been some controversy about the rights of claim to the project. 

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called on the ruling government to give credit to former President John Mahama for the project. They argue that the former president had cut sod for the construction of the road during his tenure, a formality they claim was repeated by the Vice President, Mahmoud Bawumia.

The evidence adduced for this comes from an article by ghanapolitics.com. That, however, was not about the Motorway Roundabout project but rather a flyover project which was to link Spintex road to East Legon. They are two different projects.

Social media users have also not been left out of the discussion. A post on Facebook, which has since been removed, suggested that President Akufo-Addo did not have the right to commission a project undertaken by his predecessor. According to the post, former President John Mahama is the person responsible for the project’s realization and should, therefore, be the one to commission it. The post was met with a lot of backlash by users of the platform and members of the group on which it was posted, owing mainly to the nature of the language used in the post.

A Little Background of the Motorway Roundabout and the Project

The Tema Motorway Roundabout is a highly used point for traffic from Accra, Tema and environs. The intersection used to be prone to severe traffic congestion, especially during rush hour owing to heavy use of the intersection. In response to several complaints by road users, the Government of Ghana requested the assistance of the Japanese Government to improve the situation at the interchange. 

The request was to cover a two-phase construction of flyovers to improve traffic flow at the intersection. A preparatory survey on the project was entrusted to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and was scheduled to take place from March 2015 to March 2017.

The period stated for the implementation of the project was estimated to be eight months for detailed engineering design and 36 months for construction work.

Some Details on the Project: Who Did What?

The Government of Ghana, led by then-President, John Mahama in 2013 requested the grant from the Japanese Government to implement the Tema Motorway Interchange project.

The grant signed was to cover two programmes:

“(1) The Programme for Improvement of Ghanaian International Corridors (6,259 million yen)  

(2) The Programme for Poverty Reduction Strategy (Health Sector) (200 million yen)”.  

The first programme was to feature the building of an underpass at the “Tema Motorway Roundabout and conduct detailed design improvements for the rehabilitation of National Trunk Road N8 in the Central Region”. This is in the bid to ensure safe, efficient “road transportation and contribute to the efficient flow of goods between international corridors (the Lagos-Abidjan Highway and the Eastern Corridor of Ghana).”

The project was mentioned in both the 2016 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of Ghana, and the 2016 State of the Nation Address delivered by the Finance Minister Seth Terkper and John Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana at the time, respectively. The Budget Statement stated that discussions on the Accra-Tema Motorway project design concept and the draft agreement were ongoing with detailed feasibility studies and designs to commence in 2016 while the State of the Nation Address noted that,

 “Preparatory works for the redevelopment of the Accra-Tema Motorway into a six-lane road with 4 interchanges at Adjei Kojo, Abattoir, Teshie Link, and Tema Roundabout will commence soon”.

John Mahama added that the project was ongoing in his State of the Nation Address, as seen on the Official Twitter account for @NDCGH when in actual fact it did not commence until 2018.

According to a press release on the website of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the contract for the grant was signed with the Government of Ghana to provide grant aid of up to the sum of 6,259 million yen for the execution of two programmes in March 2017. JICA’s role here was to provide the road infrastructure to support Ghana’s efforts to enhance transportation capacity with the goal of improving the flow of goods between international corridors with the execution of the project by Messrs Shimizu Dai-Nippon, a Japanese construction firm.

Vice president Mahamadu Bawumia cut sod for the commencement of construction works on the Tema Motorway Roundabout in July 2018.

President Akufo-Addo commissioned phase one of the Tema Motorway interchange on Friday, June 5, 2020, with a pledge to commence phase two of the project in the fourth quarter of  2020.

Conclusion

It is fair to say that both administrations played a part in the realization of the motorway roundabout expansion project, from conceptualization, initial groundworks to execution. The John Mahama-led administration started the ground-works for the Tema Motorway Roundabout project. However, the signing of the contract securing the grant and its execution was carried out by the current government led by Akufo-Addo. And contrary to the Facebook post, as the head of the present government, President Akufo-Addo is in order to commission the project.