By Shola Oshunkeye and Frederick Asiamah
When the President-Elect of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, told our sister paper, Weekend Sun of Ghana, August, last year, that he would do what General Muhammadu Buhari did in Nigeria, by beating incumbent President John Dramani Mahama in the December 7 Presidential poll, his traducers scoffed at him. They dubbed him a horrible dreamer.
But in the encounter, held in his office in Accra, Akufo-Addo posited that if Buhari, at 73 and after four futile attempts, could win such extraordinary victory, then, neither age nor the frustrations of three failed trials would stop him from achieving his goal this time around.
He hinged his confidence partly on the historical trends between the two countries in which whatever major political event that occurs in one is usually replicated in the other. He believed that if Buhari could shatter the much-taunted power of incumbency and unseat incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, he too would scuttle the second term ambition of President Mahama. And become the country’s next President. And that is exactly what happened on December 7, 2016, when he and his New Patriotic Party, NPP, swept the polls.
To put the conversation beyond his critics, Akufo-Addo, then 71, had also declared that age would not deter his performance in office. He robbed that point in, citing examples of African and world leaders who ruled their countries in the twilight of their age and still over performed.
In a nutshell, the President-Elect said emphatically that Buhari, had become his inspiration. “What he (Buhari) has done is quite unusual,” he declared. “In Nigeria’s 16 years of democratic rule, this is the first time that an incumbent President has been brought down at the polls. It’s a historic event, not just Nigeria but for the continent.”
Please, enjoy the interview which we decided to re-run because of the currency of the issues.
Let me ask you this basic question: Who is the man Nana Akufo-Addo? Who do you think you are?
I’m a Ghanaian who is very, very concerned about the growth and development of Ghana. I have always wanted to do my little to promote the development and growth of Ghana.
I’m an honest person, a generous person, somebody who believes that humanity is good, rather than bad, even though we need to be careful. I’m somebody who relishes challenges, somebody who sees challenges as opportunities rather than as obstacles.
I’m somebody who, all his life, has believed that there is a special destiny for us, Ghanaians, and the black people in the world; somebody who has never accepted the idea that we should always be at the bottom of the ladder; somebody who believes that we are capable of competing with the best in the world, and are making special civilisation, which comes from us as Africans.
That has been my belief. These are the beliefs that have motivated me; they are the attitudes that have inspired my life, including solidarity.
Conversely, who do you think people think you are?
It’s difficult to say. There is a political propaganda.
But what do you think those who don’t love your face think you really are?
I know what they say. I don’t know what they think. I don’t have the gift of clairvoyance
So, what do they say?
Arrogant, bellicose, a divisive figure.
Are you not arrogant?
You judge. You have to judge. You can never judge yourself.
Are you bellicose?
I don’t see it myself. I have never taken up a gun in anger. I’m not one of those in the forefront of resolving problems in this country by force. On the contrary, I have always believed in peaceful political intercourse.
Are you elitist?
At all! I believe very much in how Ghana can make it; and this is by making sure that everybody has an opportunity.
How close are you to the grassroots?
Very close.
Because the grassroots are those that bear the brunt of bad governance, and also feel the impact of good governance the most…
(Cuts in…) Absolutely! I am very conscious of that.
How close are you to the people at the grassroots? Because many people believe that you are a class-conscious person…
I don’t believe that I am any more than any of the political leaders of our country. I don’t believe that the President is any more there than I am.
You are almost buried in books here. What are you still doing with books at this age?
Reading is a personal attribute. It is a personal thing. And I think you can never stop learning and imbibing wisdom. All of the wisdom of humanity is recorded in books and papers, unfortunately. Then, there is also the wisdom we get from active interaction with people but I want to, as much as possible, learn as much as I can and as many things as possible.
In other words, the point you are making is that there is no end to learning…
Never! Never!
When do you stop learning?
I suppose when you die.
Are you searching for solutions to Ghana’s problems through reading, maybe from people’s experience? I can see one on Cuba here.
Definitely from reading about what is happening elsewhere, you can gain some information for your own situation. I don’t think there is any doubt about that. Also, it helps when you search for solutions from elsewhere.
It is instructive to read about other people’s experience. Many people have passed through what we are passing through now. Therefore, learning about how they did it, reading about how they did it, can be fruitful for what we need to do here in Ghana.
When you emerged as NPP’s standard bearer, the question many people were asking was: what does he want again? I put the same question to you: What do you want again?
First of all, the impression is given as if, somehow, I’m doing something very strange. There is nothing strange about my situation. There are political leaders on the continent, in Europe, in the Americas, in Asia, who have been persistent.
And there are lots and lots of stories of people who have gone two, three, four, five times for leadership of their party and country. We have just had an example in Nigeria of somebody, who has made it, as an elected President, at his fourth attempt.
You are talking about General Muhammadu Buhari?
I am talking about General Buhari.
Is he an inspiration to you?
Yes! To some extent. He has to be, generally. What he has done is something quite unusual. In Nigeria’s 16 years of democratic rule, this is the first time that an incumbent President has been brought down at the polls. It’s a historic event, not just Nigeria but for the continent.
We have not done that yet in Ghana. We have had changes of party to party, but we have not had the situation where an incumbent President, going for a second term, as it were, lost that bid. All our Presidents, here, so far, have had a second term.
But apart from General Buhari, there are lots and lots of examples in many other parts of the world of people who have tried. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, it’s not so much about what he wants in terms of the position or the title.
What matters is what motivated somebody to want to do what I am doing? Why are you in politics? I understand that question better that way.
So, why are you in politics at this age that most people consider as the beginning of the twilight of age?
Twilight? May be. But it is also an age where many, many people have tasted power for the first time. The man who transformed India in modern times, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, first BJP leader, was 74, when he became Prime Minister of India, and it was in his time that many of the changes took place.
(Atal Bihari Vajpayee was twice Prime Minister of India, first from 16 May to 1 June 1996; then, from 19 March 1998 to 22 May 2004. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Vaypayee served as the eleventh Prime Minister of India. He was born on December 25, 1924).Then, Xiao Pin in China was well into his 70s when he emerged as ruler of China, and when the changes that he brought about took place.
So, age has nothing to do with it. And, I think that the recent Nigerian example has showed it even here on the west coast. The most effective leaders we have in the west coast today are all people in their 70s – Alhassane Ouatarra, in next door Cote D’Ivoire, is 73 going 74; Ellen Sirleaf Johnson in Liberia is 76 going 77. These have been the most prominent rulers on the west coast in recent times.
So, I don’t believe age has anything to do with it. It always comes back to the saying that: what is it that you want to do? And how strongly are you committed to doing it? That is what will keep you going. If your commitment is light, it’s relatively easy for you to say, ‘Oh, I’ve had enough, let me go.’
But if it is that you genuinely have a belief that you can make a difference in the way your society works, in the way your country develops, then, you are ready for the challenge at any time. Age is not, and shouldn’t be, a barrier. That’s how I see it.
I want to pick one word you just used: ‘strongly’. And many people who argue against your candidature strongly posit that whoever wants to aspire to be President of the Republic of Ghana must have the vitality and strength of youth to be able to cope with the rigours of the office. How prepared are you in terms of physical and mental strength?
Very well prepared! But in any event, and as I often say, the difficulty about these arguments is, if you know a little bit of history, you would know that there are so many examples that tell you the other way. I mean we’ve got the example of our own current President (Mahama), who is relatively young at 58 or 59 but who is seriously messing up our country.
How do you mean “messing up” the country?
Messing up! Messing up! He took a country that five, six years ago was the talk of the entire continent; a country that has become a mature or maturing democracy, and an economy that had begun to seriously bloom and prosper, with oil being discovered; and within four or five years, we are back in the arms of the IMF. We are back in the arms of IMF. We now have to go through a very rigorous process of finding discipline and finding how to manage our public finances, with all kinds of conditionalities attached to it.
Now, our currency has become one of the wobbliest on the continent. In the four or five years that he has been in power, our economy has shrunk, and the hardships and difficulties that the Ghanaian people are facing today are considerable. You go around and you will see what people are saying and feeling. So, you ask yourself: so, what is the purpose of all this so-called energy of youth? The end result is what we are seeing here in Ghana.
As I say, we have successful leaders who are tall; and we have had successful leaders who are short. We have had successful leaders who are men and we have successful leaders who are women. We have successful leaders who are old; we have successful leaders who are young. The human story gives you examples of all sorts.
So, I tend not to be very concerned about those issues; issues of age, even issues like health. People, today, tend to forget this fact: that the greatest war in the history of the world, the Second World War, was conducted by a man in a wheel chair, a cripple, Franklin Roosevelt. The victorious President and leader, who led the greatest army in history to the biggest victory in the history of the world, was in a wheelchair!
Although he hid the magnitude of his disability from Americans, at the time…
I don’t know about that. But everybody knew about his condition. When he campaigned, everybody knew that he was a cripple.
Everybody knew that he had had polio and was in a wheel chair. He couldn’t hide that. So, what is the fuss about age? Ronald Reagan, who entered the White House at the age of 70, has turned out to be one of the most successful Presidents in American history. Yet, you have much younger people who have come up and didn’t do so well. So, those are never the issues.
The issues are: what does he believe? What does he want to do? How seriously is he committed to those things? Are the policies that he wants to establish the way that the country can prosper and benefit? Those are the questions that are really relevant to ask when you come across public people.
Talking about what you are bringing to the table, if you were the one occupying the Flagstaff House what would you have done differently from what President Mahama has done about the economy? Going to the IMF? Would you have turned your back against the IMF?
There are several things. I wouldn’t have taken us at that base. I wouldn’t have taken us to the IMF.
So, what alternatives would you be proffering?
(President John) Kufuor left in 2009. He left behind an economy that was growing at 8 percent; GDP growth then was over 8 percent. The Ghanaian economy, in the eight years that Kufuor was in power, expanded four times. The size of the Ghanaian economy quadrupled in Kufuor’s time. When he left office, our nation was growing at over 8 percent per annum. That was before commercial oil production began in Ghana. It was in his time we discovered oil but it was after he left that we began to produce it in any quantities whatsoever. That is the situation that Ghana was when Kufuor left in 2009.
To add to that, the IMF programme to which we had committed ourselves – the HPIC programme – had been brought to an end. The IMF itself had indicated that we were no longer dependent on IMF concessionary financing to promote the development of our country. Indeed, the first Eurobond, the first entry into the capital market by Ghana, was in Kufuor’s last but one year. It was in 2007 that we went to borrow $750 million from the capital markets of Europe. That was where the economy was.
Now, with prudent management, cutting out waste and dishonesty, continuing the path that he had left, ensuring macroeconomic stability and fiscal discipline, making sure that the currency, even if it moved, moved in very limited range, ensuring that budget supported expenditure in social and capital items that made sense for our country, the National Health Insurance Scheme, School Feeding Programme, the expansion of our educational facilities – this was where Ghana was going.
Today, here we are; the School Feeding Programme has collapsed. The National Health Insurance Scheme has virtually collapsed. Statutory payments to the Common Fund, GETFund, are all in consolable arrears largely because our nation is broke. And there are many allegations of widespread corruption.
I will give you an example. I used it the other day, and I will repeat it. Three of the big scams of recent times in Ghanaian history are SADA, the GYEEDA and the judgement debts, which were very questionable payments. Between them, 1.8 billion Cedis of public monies could no longer be accounted for. The money passed through institutions and got stolen by officials. I can put it in no other way, the officials were not accountable. No attempts were made to force them to get the monies back-1.8 billion Cedis! Going by the exchange rate at the time when those transactions took place, we are effectively talking about 1.1 billion dollars. The entire IMF bailout for three years is 912 million dollars.
If you manage this economy intelligently and prudently, if you cut out waste and corruption, things would run well. The money is there for you to manage the country. That is the lesson that we learnt under Kufuor, and that is the lesson that I would have attempted to pursue had I won the 2009 elections and again in 2012.
So, when you say: what is it that I would have done differently? I say that many things would have been different. For instance, waste will not be there. The corruption will not be there. The fiscal discipline would have been there. And once you have those things, coupled with stability, you would be in the position to open up the economy.
■This article was first published by our sister paper, Weekend Sun of Ghana on August 7, 2015.