In a recently released memoir, renowned Ghanaian actress and movie producer Yvonne Nelson has expressed her regret over a photograph she took with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during his election victory in 2016.
Yvonne Nelson, known for her outspoken nature, claimed that the president had not lived up to the expectations in terms of general governance and economic management.
The memoir reveals that Yvonne Nelson and her friends visited the then president-elect Akufo-Addo to extend their congratulations shortly after the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its candidate emerged victorious in the 2016 elections.
According to her, the opposition won the election because, at that time, the nation was grappling with a severe power crisis, known as "dumsor," which had resulted in significant job losses and adversely impacted small-scale enterprises heavily reliant on electricity.
She spoke about her involvement in the 2015 #DumsorMustStop protest before adding: “A year later, the opposition NPP and its candidate won the 2016 election. The power crisis and its effects were a major sin of the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC). Dumsor had resulted in job losses and dealt a deadly blow to the small-scale enterprises that depended on electricity but could not afford alternative sources of power. Even though the NDC administration resolved the crises at a huge cost and through shady procurement deals, the victims of dumsor, corruption, and mismanagement could not forgive the party at the presidential and parliamentary polls.
“The NPP, led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, won massively in both the presidential and parliamentary elections. Some friends and I went to congratulate the president-elect, Nana Akufo-Addo, with whom we took a photograph. It is a photograph I regret taking.”
She added that Nana Akufo-Addo, who was presented as an incorruptible leader and the antidote to corruption in the public sector and political space, has fallen short of expectations. "He was said to be incorruptible, and Ghanaians thought he was going to be the antidote to mass stealing at the highest level, which is euphemized as corruption. Unfortunately for Ghana and those who trusted in him, he has turned out to be a monumental disappointment whose government's unbridled borrowing, corruption, and reckless spending plunged the nation into economic dumsor," she wrote in her book dubbed "I Am Not Yvonne Nelson."
In her book, Yvonne Nelson, among other disclosures, revealed that she was contacted by a person close to the president to become the parliamentary candidate of the New Patriotic Party for the Ayawso West Wuogon Constituency in the 2020 general elections.
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President Akufo-Addo and Yvonne Nelson
