NANA AKUFO-ADDO AND THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW AFRICAN ORDER

Africa has been the laggard of the world due to colonialism, imperialism, inept leadership and crises
of stability. Poverty is rife on a continent in search of charismatic and innovative leaderships. In Ghana a light indicating the emergence of a new great African leader shines on the horizon. His name is Nana Addo Dangwa Akufo-Addo. He reminds one of the strong leadership of the era of independence in some African states.

Ghana was one of British colonial territories in Africa. It needed strong and purposeful nationalists to wrestle it from the claws of colonialism. Kwame Nkrumah was not found wanting in this regard. He was Ghana’s first indigenous leader.
He was among the principal organizers of the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester (15–19 October 1945). The Congress came out with a strategy for defeating colonialism using African socialism. Among African nationalists at the congress were Hastings Banda of Nyasaland (now Malawi), Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Obafemi Awolowo of Nigeria.

Nkrumah’s speech at Ghana's independence in 1957 put in clear perspective the future ambition of the African continent. In what has become one of the best moving speeches ever made by an African leader, Nkrumah talked of reshaping the destiny of his country within the context of the brotherhood of Africa, meaning that Ghana’s progress was also dependent on what happened on the continent.
In the speech, he promised that Africans will sleep no more. He called it a new Africa ready to fight its own battle, to prove that when the black man is given the chance he can create his own African personality and identity.
It has been widely agreed that the Nkrumah’s despite their flaws represent the golden period of leadership in Africa. Since their departure, African states have moved from one crises to the other due to poor leadership. But in recent time hope started rising for Africa’s revival with the emergence of the likes of Festus Mogae of Botswana, Paul Kagane of Rwanda and recently Nana Akufo-Ado of Ghana.

The the attention the Ghanian leader in particular attracts is helped by his eloquence, ideals and charisma. He has energized the conversation about the plight of Africa in the international system.
Akufo-Addo ran for the office of president in 2008 and 2012. He was defeated on both occasions. In 2016 he ran again on the platform of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and defeated the incumbent president John Mahama. 
He was sworn-in on January 7, 2017 as the president of Ghana. Since then he has not shied away from the subjects of Africa’s underdevelopment. He is 74years old.

Nana Akufo Ado is a former Minister of Justice and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ghana in the administration of John Kufuor. In a press conference with the president of France Emmanuel Macron the Ghanian President left no one in doubt about the re-enactment of the African personality that Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and the likes sought to enact.
Like Nkrumah, is Nana Addo set to lead a radical wing of African nationalists and make it a point of duty to see to the realization of an Africa designed to end imperialism? With an exuberant personality and deep intellectual disposition will Nana Addo inspire the struggle for the speedy and immediate development of Africa?

He has already set a political agenda for Ghana and wants the black man by all means to chat his own cause. He appears to be a fighter on a mission to create a new development frontier controlled and driven by Africans.
He is a man of great speeches, but the manner he navigates the domestic affairs of Ghana is a determinant of his acceptance as the front runner championing a new African order.
Source: E. Obilo