Born in 1944 into a family whose dominant careers were law, politics and public service, President Akufo-Addo was destined to become either a lawyer, a public servant, a politician or all three.

Akufo-Addo is reported to have described the events during, and those immediately after the famous riots of 28th February 1948 in Osu and Accra. As his political baptism, he was only 4 years old, but remembers the tremendous movement of humans in a ferocious manner as to show anger and resentment towards the colonial authority of the day.

Consequently, the suspected leaders of the riots were arrested, save Nii Kwabena Bonnie III-the Osu Alata Manste, five lawyers and their general secretary named Kwame Nkrumah were arrested and detained. Led by J.B. Danquah, the group became famed as the Big Six, whose images adorn the national currency.

That was Akufo-Addo’s political baptism; 3 of the Big Six were his direct relatives- Danquah was a grand uncle, Will Ofori-Atta was his direct uncle and Edward Akufo-Addo was his father. He had sufficient acquaintance with the other 3 especially Obetsebi Lamptey whose son Otanka (later known as Jake Obetsebi Lamptey) was also 4 years old and became Akufo-Addo’s first best friend at age 4 as they became playmates.

Akufo Addo then saw and must have been disturbed by the rancorous politics of the pre and post-independence era. Since he was raised in a political home as it were, by Nana Addo (his father)- as he was known, then, he must have been bombarded with daily stories depicting the policy decadence, heard daily thesis against the abuse of human rights and some of the objections to the provisions of the 1960 Constitution.

It was in those circumstances of his upbringing that the young Akufo-Addo observed the imprisonment of his uncle Danquah under the PDA and the dismissal of his father as a supreme court judge by the president for the ruling in the Tawiah Adamafio trial.

These two occurrences developed the human rights activism in the young Nana Addo and it began to form an essential part of his political philosophy.

Next was the overthrow of the Nkrumah regime, and the restoration of parliamentary democracy. By this time Nana Addo is in university and has more grounded philosophy, having met many young ideologues at Legon campus, some of them being Prof Modibo Ocran (later nominated by Akufo-Addo for the role of supreme court justice during the Kuffour era), Prof Fiadzo, Tsastu Tsikata, Akilakpa Sawyer and the left wingers of the day. The first ideological strand that seems to have taken firm roots was the human rights foundation.

But Nana Addo must have observed with great disappointment the furious and unhealthy attitudes manifested by the likes of Joe Appiah who were determined to divide the UP tradition for their own parochial interest.

Try as they did, they could not convince Appiah, a staunch member of the tradition to accept Busia as the leader, Appiah felt that he could lead too and in the end all the elders including Da Rocha and most likely Akufo-Addo’s father gave up. Appiah left and formed his own party, Busia won a landslide, Appiah was vanquished and became a pariah to the UP. Nana Addo must have felt terrible about that and that incident began to mushroom into the strand of his philosophy, ie Unity of the group, Unity of purpose and a broad based approach to leadership.

Akufo-Addo’s next level of interaction with politics was to manifest the two strands of his now emerging political philosophy, human rights and a broad-based political movement but in keeping with the tradition.

This was the event in the mid to late 70’s. It was the protest by professional bodies against the human rights violations of the Acheampong era and the attempt to torpedo democracy by introducing the UNIGOV matter.

Nana Ado was delivered to work alongside former Nkrumahist from the CPP and the NAL group together with people from his own tradition. He enjoyed working with Obed Asamoah, Sam Okudzeto, Dr Agama, Afro Gbedemah, Da Rocha, Victor Owusu, Peter Adjetey, Adu Boahen, and of course, one of his long time mentor’s Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa who actually got Nana Addo excited about this action for democracy.

Nana Addo tells the story where after court in Kumasi one day, he had received a call to trek to Krobo in Mampong Ashanti, to see Gen Afrifa,.

As history will have it, on that day Akufo-Addo was in the company of another Akufo, the young and dashing lawyer named Sophia. Of course in later life Akufo-Addo will become president and will appoint Sophia as Chief Justice, what can we say, the twists and turns of history.

Then came the creation of the PMMJ which is what the Afrifa movement was called. Nana Addo became the joint general secretary of the group.

The protest appeared to have been successful and democracy was restored.

Then came the bitter pill for Akufo Addo, his uncle and his mentor were both fighting for the leadership of the party his uncle helped to found.

He was devastated and couldn’t even make a decision on how to vote; he felt the pain of divisions in politics.

So by the end of the elections of 1979, Akufo-Addo’s political philosophy had been well formed, it was two fold, an avowed pro human rights philosophy and a stickler for party unity plus a broad based outlook for party leadership.

At the beginning of the 80’s, he Nana Addo supported the unity talks between the PFP and the UNC. These tales gave birth to a new party called the APP. All Peoples Party. The APP was to be led by Victor Owusu and to have Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu as its running mate and so on so forth.

The APP was poised to win the 1983 elections but alas the elections were not to be. J.J. Rawlings and Kojo Tsikata showed up and the rest is history.

In the early 80’s Akufo-Addo left UV Cambell law firm to set up his own. Together with his friend Dr. Prempeh (who is currently a chief in Asanteman) they formed Akufo Addo, Prempeh and Co.

One of the distinguishing features of this law firm was that they represented clients for free on all human rights issues. It was a big sacrifice to make and junior lawyers were not particularly excited by having to go to court for free but this was the master’s philosophy and as providence will have it, most of the lawyers from this law firm became some of the best and brightest ever seen from the Ghana Bar. The firm has produced as many as four Attorney Generals- the boss himself, Joe Ghartey, Gloria Akuffo and the current AG, Godfred Dame.

The 1980’s was quiet for politics in Ghana. During the period, Akufo-Addo will spend his time in both England and Ghana.

At the grand funeral ceremony organised by the Bar Association for his father in 1980, the bar president, Mr William Adumoah Bossman as he then was, paid glowing tribute to the late CJ but emphasised that if what had been seen of his son was anything to go by then the bar must be ready for a blistering legal career that should hopefully surpass that of the great Edward. To this there was loud applause. Mr Bossman had prophesied right and the rest as they say is history.

By 1991 prof Albert Adu Boahen had used university lectures to arouse the desire in Ghana for a return to constitutional rule and a return to the regime of human rights.

Upon such pressure the PNDC agreed to allow party politics to occur from 1992 with a new constitution.

The UP tradition had to form again and this time Unity was key, once Unity was key and the choice was to be broadened, Akufo-Addo was in. This was his philosophy, let’s unite and broaden our base by making leadership accessible to all.

So he supported Adu Boahen.

Then came the loss of election and the boycott of Parliament which left the opposition with just the courts and street protests as well as media to express their objection to JJ and the NDC.
At this time, Akufo-Addo introduced another strand of his philosophy, the clarion call for independent media and the repeal of the Criminal Libel laws.

He set up a newspaper and named it “The Statesman”-same name as JB Danquah’s paper in the 1940’s.

So there emerged a third strand in the philosophy of Akufo-Addo; Human rights, broad based politics and independent media.

The years of opposition from 1993 to 1996 were very eventful. A new group called the Alliance for Change emerged. It became a very formidable group of young persons who staged what is yet the biggest demonstration ever.

The success of the group and the calibre of their leaders made them a clear choice for political mobilisation and party politics.

This situation came with huge temptations, the NPP seemed to be struggling with youth mobilisations, but was better than the CPP. It was felt that the AFC could usurp the political space of both parties to create a movement to supplant both traditions to win power for the moment.

This thought was very tempting and it became even more pronounced when the AFC’s choice of Kwame Pianim as NPP’s candidate was undermined by the supreme court ruling disqualifying Mr. Pianim from running for president.

Elements in the AFC who really wanted the break away to form a new party included Charles Wereko Brobbey, Kojo Poku, Kakraba Cromwell and Kwesi Pratt jnr and to some extent Anthony Akoto Ampaw.

But the most popular figure among the leadership of the AFC was the human rights lawyer, Nana Akufo-Addo who was also the group’s spokesperson (as appointed by Nyaho Tamakloe) and his support was needed for this breakaway effort.

The NPP contest had proceeded without Kwame Pianim and it elected John Kuffour for the first time to lead the NPP.

The groundswell of talk about the breakaway occasioned an alliance between the CPP then known as PCP and the NPP. Nana Addo was very much against the breakaway of the alliance, he stood for unity of the NPP.

So the 1996 election was fought and Kuffour lost, JJ was elected.

There were other elements in the AFC leadership like Kweku Baako who felt same as Akufo Addo that the alliance should not supplant the regular parties. It is said that Mr Baako had a real admiration for Prof Adu Boahen and seemed to have transferred same to Kuffour after Kuffour became the candidate.

Akufo Addo was given pressure by the youth to challenge Kuffuor for the NPP mandate for election 2000 in 1998.

This writer is one of the young people who organised a bus from the university of Ghana to attend the Congress in Sunyani and offer Nana Addo the high morale. So were many other youths from different walks of life.
We all (the youth) met with the candidate, Nana Addo and he addressed us in the company of Gen Nunoo Mensah who was his campaign manager at the time.

The candidate told us that whatever happens he is grateful for our support. He told us that win or lose we should support the winner to defeat the NDC in 2000 because as he put it, “Ghana may collapse under a government of ineptitude if the NDC wins again.”

Kuffour won the contest and Akufo-Addo conceded defeat.
In the weeks that followed many were those who encouraged Akufo-Addo to explore his tremendous popularity with the youth and create his own political movement and run against the NPP for election 2000.

One other leader of the AFC Charles Wereko Brobbey who was much less popular and less fancied by the youth however succumbed to the temptation to form a new party, he left the NPP and founded the United Ghana Movement UGM, this writer was at the launch of the UGM in Nsawam in March 2000 as a reporter for JOY FM.

At that event Charles Brobbey had an impressive message for the youth but it was obvious that the loyalty of the youth of that day lay elsewhere, it was with Nana Akufo Addo, the avowed human rights lawyer and unifier.

Kuffour’s campaign for election 2000 took off without much ceremony. It began in the nook and cranny of the hinterland. Sometime during the campaign, Nana Addo and his army of youth joined the Kuffour campaign to bring it the much needed boost and impetus required to create a sensation for victory.

Victory was achieved and Kuffour became president. Akufo-Addo became Attorney General and later Foreign Affairs Minister.

In December 2007, Akufo-Addo was elected the party’s flagbearer. His first choice of running mate was Hajia Alima Mahama. He felt it was time to spread the base to include the gender parity. Somehow members of his party felt it was not time for gender. The choice of running mate being exclusively his, Akufo Addo could have proceeded and insisted, but holding the philosophy of unity and reconciliation he agreed to change the candidate and now named the very youthful banker whose father was founder of the Northern Peoples Party that became the party with the highest number of seats within the UP alliance that was led by Busia.

The older Bawumia had continued in politics with the PNDC and NDC and had risen to become chairman of JJ’s council of state.

The announcement of the new choice of running mate received some queries, however, Nana Addo campaigned among important party people to secure their support and backing for his choice.

The election 2008 was lost. And in 2012 Nana Addo repeated Bawumia

By the end of the 2013 election petition, Bawumia had won the hearts of most NPP youth. He had come of political age and he was now a real asset of the party. Akufo-Addo’s philosophy was beginning to take root in the NPP.

The NPP gained significant attraction in the Mahama years from 2013 towards 2016.

So many high profile young corporate leaders began to associate with the NPP.

Important members of corporate Ghana and high profile journalist such as George Andah and Kojo Oppong Nkrumah joined the NPP and became parliamentary candidates. Young musicians and comedians all rallied behind the NPP under Akufo-Addo’s philosophy.

By the year 2016, the NPP was fully Akufo Addo’s party and it was at its attractive best.

Not even a major upheaval of the board room crisis that led to the removal of the chairman and general secretary could undermine the resolve if this youthful army of Akufo-Addo faithfuls. They proceeded to win a record breaking landslide victory against John Mahama.

As soon as power came, Akufo-Addo began to pursue Unity, he had remembered his opponents from 2007 and proceeded to name Alan Kyrematen as trade minister long before any minister was officially named. The Alan caucus was happy and liked the respect that Akufo-Addo had shown them.

That was about making sure the ship remained united.

From the first term, Dr Bawumia had shown that he would be a great Veep, full of innovation and thoughtful leadership, he managed to win the hearts of most of the youth.

Nana Addo was elected for a second term whilst the NPP took a hit in parliament.

Worsening global economic conditions have forced the government into an IMF program and all that has made the election 2024 a difficult one for the NPP.

So in choosing the new flagbearer, the party youthful army are guided by the strands of Akufo-Addo’s philosophy which among other things, is the broad based philosophy of the party.

If that were to be achieved, then Akufo-Addo’s philosophy would have been secured hundred percent.

For the NPP youth, this is their fight, they are desperate to show a new direction of party leadership for the NPP.

This is what is giving Bawumia the lead, the oomph and the enthusiasm around his campaign, the political astuteness of his wife, Hajia Samira also makes Bawumia’s candidature tremendous and attractive.

The real big fight will begin next week when Bawumia will be settled in lane 1 to run against former President John Mahama in lane 2.

Until then let’s watch the political space…

The author of this piece is Paul Adom-Otchere, a senior journalist with the Ignite Media Group. He is the host of the Good Evening Ghana show.