Prime News Ghana

Akufo-Addo's dislike for material things makes him incorruptible - JJ

By Jeffrey Owusu-Mensah
Former President JJ Rawlings and Nana Akufo-Addo
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Former President J.J. Rawlings has supported New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's assertion that he is an incorruptible person.

According to him, it would be extremely difficult for anybody to tag Akufo-Addo with corruption or any related criminal act, considering his dislike for material things.

Speaking to The Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria, Mr. Rawlings said, "fortunately for them (the NPP), they have a leader who is not known for messing around with material things".

The former president's attestation to Akufo-Addo's credibility comes just  days after the NPP flagbearer stated that he was not corrupt and was not into politics to enrich himself.

In the interview, Mr. Rawlings accused the NDC party and government of being  engulfed in the canker of corruption fearing that it could affect the chances of the party in the general elec­tions likely November this year.

He went on to criticize the current leadership of the country for allowing cor­ruption to envelope a party which was formed on the principles of probity, accountability, and social justice.

That, according to Mr. Rawlings, was part of the rea­sons why his wife and for­mer first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, left the NDC - a party she played an active role in forming - to go and form her own political group, the National Demo­cratic Party (NDP).

Mr. Rawlings under­scored, "All I can do is speak up because I find myself in a situation where I have moral responsibility and no executive authority.

"I would have wished that my moral authority could have the same influ­ence. But that is not the case; corruption has infiltrated our institutions and their leaders so badly today that they use some kind of lens, to demonstrate that you can keep your moral authority, but this is executive power at work. The situation is so bad; so unfortunate."

Unfortunate as it is, Mr. Rawlings said all "...I can do is to critique and advo­cate for my people. I can't hide it. And I believe that was how I won the respect from the larger populace, from both sides of the polit­ical divide. I have remained principled."

"My wife is still standing where she is, cut off from our party that she was very responsible in building up because it became corrupted from Mills' time", he bemoaned to The Guardian Newspaper, according to Daily Guide.