Former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings has flung yet another attack on NPP flag-bearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, challenging the veracity of his legal credentials. Mrs Agyeman-Rawlings said she has enough evidence to prove that the former Attorney General and Minister for Justice, and flag-bearer of the ruling New Patriotic Party is not a Lawyer after all, contrary to what his curriculum vitae beams with. Nana Konadu who was addressing the Greater Accra wing of the Tertiary Education Institutions Network of the NDC in Accra said Nana Addo has for too long been “lying about his own capacity and capabilities.” “We cannot sit down for them to peddle these lies around,” she said. However checks on an NPP dedicated web portal www.ibelieveinghana.com shows pages displaying a stark contrast of the claims of the first lady. The website details the flag-bearer’s age, education, family, as well as his favourite past-times. His profession is the sixth item which the website presents as a Lawyer, called to English Bar in July 1975 and served as legal counsel with Coudert Fréres (Brothers), “a major US law firm,” at their Paris office. Even though these present Nana Addo as a legal achiever, the former first lady said it is all a blatant string of lies. “Now we have somebody… who is coming and is also saying he is a lawyer, trained in France; it’s all a lie. He did not go to any law school. He has been practicing in Ghana as a lawyer but he never went to law school,” Nana Konadu said. The former First Lady said contrary to Nana Addo claims, he had only been working with the France-based legal firm as an economist and nothing more than that. "Reactions" and checks Reacting to the issue, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Owusu Afriyie, debunked the claims describing them as “effusions of confused minds.” He said there is enough to prove that Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo is a Lawyer, daring all to verify “the truth” at the English and Ghana Bars. However, officials at the Ghana Bar Association would not confirm or state otherwise the claims by the former First Lady. Nii Osa Mills, President of the GBA, has however stated that he would be shocked to discover that Nana Addo, also a former President of the Greater Accra Regional Bar Association, is not a Lawyer because “he is supposed to be a Lawyer.” Kufuor factor According to Mrs Rawlings, the former Attorney General is not the only person “peddling falsehood” about his professional qualification; the President John Agyekum Kufuor himself is in the fray. She said the President has admitted on several platforms including interviews with BBC reporters that he [John Agyekum Kufuor] is not a Lawyer. Mrs Rawlings said it is rather saddening that even though the President has admitted not being a legal expert, some members of his party, the NPP have always hyped him as one. Race to Election 2008 The latest statement comes at a time when both the NPP and the NDC are aggressively retooling strategies up and down the ballot box. Currently the campaigns of both parties have been characterised by swirls of influences, with friends and advisers representing a matrix of ambitions. The former President Jerry Rawlings on Republic Day launched what analysts describe as blistering attacks on the NPP and its flag-bearer. The former president also accused his party men as having “refused to listen” to… The recent parliamentary primaries of the NPP across the country have also been defined by internal squabbling and power plays, zigzagging lines of command and a penchant by candidates to run each other chewy, always a recipe for disquiet. Some political analysts say the latest accusation hurled at Nana Addo could hurt the chances of his party even more if found to be true. Author: Fiifi Koomson