The repercussions of a spirited false claim, made Tuesday by Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, that the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party is not a properly qualified lawyer continue to boomerang painfully on the National Democratic Congress. While various 'spokespersons' have scrambled in vain to put a positive spin on the claim, that has been proven to be an outright lie, by the wife of NDC founder Jerry John Rawlings, the campaign team of the party's flagbearer have sought to dissociate themselves from the statement while striving to claim the Rawlingses as one of their own. Spokesperson for the Prof Mills campaign team, Mahama Ayariga, told Accra’s Joy FM that "whoever made that statement about Nana Akufo-Addo’s qualification as a lawyer is either not properly informed or has been misled.” According to him, Prof Mills has no doubt whatsoever about the professional competence and qualification of Nana Akufo-Addo as a lawyer, adding “Prof Mills who has been a law teacher for a couple of decades knows Nana Akufo-Addo and has no doubt about his competence. We have enough information about Nana Akufo-Addo to know that he is professionally qualified”. Mr Ayariga further indicated that Prof Mills has practiced law and has worked, on some occasions, with people he knows are very close or worked very closely with Nana Akufo-Addo and know his professional qualifications. Others were blunter. Speaking on Asempa FM’s Eko Sii Sen programme yesterday, Koku Anyidoho, Communications Director of the Mills campaign, described the allegations as “distractions, side issues.” But the Rawlingses have their supporters. Speaking on the same Eko Sii Sen programme, Nii Afotey-Agbo, MP for Kpone-Katamanso, maintained that Mrs Rawlings “did not lie,” but was rather speaking based on “false information.” Fiifi Kwettey, Propaganda Secretary, in a series of abortive sleights of mouth, did his best to justify the claim. On Tuesday, Mr and Mrs Rawlings took their party’s campaign strategy of making false and defamatory allegations against the NPP and Nana Akufo-Addo to another level when they accused the party’s 2008 Presidential Candidate of spending the last 37 years holding himself fraudulently as a qualified lawyer. Mrs Rawlings went as far as saying Nana Akufo-Addo’s four-year practice as associate counsel with top French law firm, Coudert Feres (Brothers) of Paris was a "big lie" and that he was rather working as an Economist, returning to Ghana to deceive the country about his law credentials. Addressing a group of students at the former First Family’s Ridge home, Mrs Rawlings went further to question President John Agyekum Kufuor’s law credentials, as well. However, Mr Ayariga insisted his candidate’s stance in the issue was not a sign of a break in flagbearer-founder relations. He maintained that the position of Prof Mills and his campaign team is not a sign of a rift within the NDC, claiming that the Mills campaign team is committed to the truth no matter who it is about and also because where the facts are inaccurate they hold it a duty to the public to correct it. Nana Akufo-Addo, a former President of the Greater Accra Bar Association, a former Attorney-General and one of the foremost constitutional and human rights lawyers in Ghana, whose name is cited several dozens of times in the annual Law Reports of Ghana [1975-2003], and has been consistently at the receiving end of negative and vile opposition propaganda, refused to comment on this when contacted by The Statesman on Tuesday. The Statesman has, however, cited a roll call of all lawyers called to the Ghana Bar between 1902-2000: from H C Thompson on 7 March 1902, who was first called to the English Bar on 17 November 1890, to Michael Douglas Foster, who was among those called on 6 October, 2000. On that official list, Nana [William] Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is down as the 1,190th person to enrol as a lawyer in Ghana. He was enrolled here on 8 July, 1975, using the address P O Box 207, Accra. 58 other lawyers were called to the Bar that year. The NDC has been consistent in spreading false stories and insults about the NPP flagbearer. They’d been consistent in spreading a lie that the former Attorney-General and Foreign Minister is a hopeless cocaine addict who cannot be trusted with leadership. Remarkably, regardless of the very obvious physical signs of the NDC leader and flagbearer being unhealthy, the NPP has resisted making the health of their main opponent a campaign issue. It was left to former President Rawlings, the NDC Founder and his group of hardcore loyalists, to make the health of Prof Mills an issue. Source: Statesman