Just Thinking Aloud: Who Are the President’s Family?

The long-awaited video released by Anas Aremeyaw Anas and the Tiger Eye PI has not only shaken the very foundation of football administration in the country, but has also brought into focus, several unanswered questions relating to politics, the Precedency and family matters.

Yes, the video has succeeded in triggering the initiation of an overhaul process of the entire football sector, but there are still more areas of the video that are begging for one form of clarity or the other.

News of the GFA president’s resignation must have given millions of soccer-fans in Ghana some form of relief, just as the 90-day ban imposed on him by FIFA. Even as we speak, the police have declared the GFA offices a crime scene and had since Friday put the place under lock and key. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

One very sensitive portion of the entire video was where the former President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Mr. Kwesi Nyantakyi, alleged that the family of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had, for some time now, been pestering him for money, ostensibly to replenish their depleted family coffers. He said the first family got broke after spending a fortune in the 2016 election campaign.

Even though Nyantakyi had issued a statement claiming he fabricated the allegations against the president and his appointees, the aspects that border on influence peddling are worthy of deeper scrutiny, more so when the matter is still being investigated by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).

It would be recalled that in one of our editorials some three weeks ago, THE PUBLISHER alerted the President over the manner some people in the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) had been peddling his name for their selfish gains, even more than what Nyantakyi allegedly did.

We still consider this issue very relevant because evidence abound that hundreds of self-centred people around the country are still using/misusing the president’s name for parochial reasons.

In the context of what Nyantakyi said, we think the President’s family is certainly not his wife and daughters; neither is it referring to his blood relations.

We dare say that the people who are neck-deep in this nasty habit of presidential influence-peddling are those throwing their weights about at the presidency and other sensitive places, by virtue of the fact that they hail from the same part of the country as the president.

After all, who doesn’t know that there is a ‘mafia’ in town sniffing its nose into almost every business deal in the country and fighting tooth and nail to determine who should be what in the ruling NPP?  Again, prior to this Anas video, who hadn’t heard of dozens of complains and cries from prominent businessmen, that they were reportedly being harassed and frustrated by the said ‘mafia’?

Well, if the presidency claims it is not aware of this dangerous development, let this ‘hint’ of presidential influence-peddling dropped by Mr. Kwesi Nyantakyi be an awakening call.

Something needs to be done, as a matter of urgency, to stop those fronting as members of the First Family, and denigrating the name of the president. He who has ears, let him hear.

But once again, we are compelled to ask: WHO ARE THE PRESIDENT’S FAMILY?