Those who know the relationship between these two gentlemen, H.E. Nana Akufo-Addo and Hon. Freddy Blay, can testify that they are good buddies from a long time.
Freddy helped out his friend a lot, with essential gifts during the dark days of Ghana, in the early eighties, when Rawlings gate crashed into governance again.
But Freddy Blay is a die-hard Nkrumaist and Nana Addo professes the UP Tradition. That can be the only difference between them, that is unless Nana Addo was once a socialist and had partnered with Freddy, until he saw the light and got converted.
With this great bond of friendship came the political rise of Freddy Blay in this country. Even though he stood on CPP ticket, he could only get into Parliament, when the NPP decided not to contest his Ellembelle seat.
In the 1996, no NPP member contested Freddy Blay, and he won the seat by eleven votes. In 2000, NPP again did not contest and Freddy Blay was re-elected with 13,772 votes.
In 2004, NPP again did not put up a candidate and Freddy Blay was again re-elected with 18,428 votes.
In the Fourth Parliament of the Fourth Republic, Freddy Blay was made the First Deputy Speaker with total support from the NPP MPs who had absolute majority in Parliament.
As things stood, Freddy Blay started tilting towards the NPP, maybe because his bosom friend, the current president, was leader.
In his CPP, he was accused among two others and branded a traitor, for publicly showing allegiance to the UP Tradition during election campaigns. About to be sacked from his party, he took the wisest decision.
Instead of tainting his political CV with dismissal boldly imprinted in prime space, Freddy Blay resigned from the party, CPP, in March 2011 and joined the NPP.
Freddy Blay’s political career grew leaps and bounds when in April 2014, he was elected as the First Vice Chairman of the NPP in the Tamale Congress. He could not have gotten that position in a minor party like the CPP, so to be one in a major party like NPP, was beyond his dreams.
And considering the minimum four years required before a new member could take up leadership position, there was a waiver for Freddy to contest a national executive position.
On Friday October 23, 2015, Freddy Blay became acting national chairman when Chairman Afoko was suspended. Freddy Blay, for the first time in his life was going to lead a party and a major one as such, to General Elections.
Instead of returning this unexpected gesture from the NPP, which he did not deserve, Freddy Blay, spat on the face of his new party. He used his paper, Daily Guide, to run full page adverts for the opposition NDC throughout the 2016 Elections Campaign.
He rose to defend his deed, but perception is every thing in politics. Why would a member of one political party, campaign for another party and be expected to be called a true member? Did the president not notice this about his old-time friend? Shall we tell the president?
As acting chairman, Freddy Blay was appointed board chairman of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in 2017 and was reappointed again in 2021.
The NPP has been a blessing to Freddy Blay and his family, with his wife appointed Ghana’s ambassador to Germany.
During the July 2018 Party Conference, Freddy Blay was elected, national chairman.
Unfortunately, Freddy Blay ushered the party into a period when its pride went low. In the 2016 Elections, using the well laid out plan Afoko, Crabbe and Agyepong had laid out, Freddy Blay led the NPP to victory and take over 61.4% of Parliament.
Comparatively, in 2000 when NPP first won elections it took 50% of Parliament. In 2004, NPP got re-elected and controlled 55.6% of the House, up 11.2%.
NPP took 2016 by storm and with H.E. President Akufo-Addo flagship social interventions programmes, 2020 looked like it would be the burial of NDC in Parliament.Going by 2004 statistics, the NPP would capture at least 187 seats, up 11.2% on seats won in 2016, with the NDC holding on to at most 88 seats.
But that was not to be. Under Freddy Blay, NPP went bonkers.In his administration, this noble party lost the respect it had.
Party foot soldiers and very active members who fought to make it regain power, were told that they do not deserve to be acknowledged, because of what is termed political neutralisation.
These party diehards witnessed benefits and rewards rightly due to them been given to the people of other parties in their communities who always fought against the NPP.
Infighting was the order of the day and with imposition of parliamentary candidates on constituencies and the undermining of MPs who were seeking re-elections, the NPP turned out with the worse results ever in the Fourth Republican history of elections that a sitting president sought re-election.
In the end the NPP lost thirty-two seats to split Parliament with the NDC winning thirty-one and a rejected stone from the NPP winning the other.NPP’s humiliation was compounded when the entire leadership had to fall on their knees and beg Fomena MP, Hon Asiamah to forgive and forget and come back home.
Under Freddy Blay, the internal wranglings in the NPP exploded in the open when the hitherto unnoticed polling station executive elections exploded out in blazes in 2022, rivalling the Russia-Ukraine war.
Never was bloodsplit in any internal contest within the NPP, until CPP Freddy Blay came to take over leadership.When he came to talk on the issues, instead of coming out with a peace plan, he rather extended the period of nomination, so that the conflicts could continue.
In the 2022 NPP Conference, Freddy Blay stepped down as chairman, however, as a former chairman, he has a seat on the party’s National Council, where he would have a say in any discussions and decisions the party will have and take on any matter, internal, national and international.
All the same the party heaved a sigh of relief, with Freddy Blay, now no longer in charge. But unfortunately, Freddy Blay did not entirely leave the scene. He came back, this time in full battle cry to defy his bosom friend and destroy what the president is determined to restore in the country. The galamsey pandemic.
With the destruction of land and water bodies escalating in leaps and bounds due to this illegal and unregulated form of mining, H.E. President Nana Akufo-Addo is determined to restore sanity in mining and restore our water bodies and arable lands to normalcy.
Foreigners who strictly respect their countries’ environmental laws have taken over our forests with one ambition, to destroy our environment in search of gold.
Ghanaians who are greedy and irresponsible collect a mere pittance and sell our heritage. In the end, we end up enriching other nationals while we get poorer and poorer.
This illegal and unregulated mining going on in this country with such impunity, is sooner than later going to end us where El Salvador got to, before it placed an outright ban on all forms of mining. The question is, can Ghana survive with 90% of its fresh water bodies and 50% of arable lands polluted with toxic chemicals?
As the leader of this nation, H.E. Nana Akufo-Addo, put his presidency on the line and resolved to put an end to the illegal and unregulated mining going on in this country. Soon some foreign nationals were arrested and put before the courts.
All was going on coolly when Hon Freddy Blay appeared on the scene as a lawyer, not to persecute the nation wreckers but to defend them. Freddy Blay tells us that he was going to prove that his clients were innocent and maybe someone was suffering from optical illusion, thought he saw his clients at the galamsey sites. Moreover, all Chinese look the same to Ghanaians.
All jokes, apart Freddy Blay has no right going this length, because of the position he holds in society and the fact that, his bosom friend’s political career and responsibility to the nation depend on, among others, halting galamsey in Ghana and returning this land into the lush greenery of vegetation in our ecosystem.
Freddy Blay is a lawyer and he has the right to represent anyone at all in court. However, someone who can be classified among those who are held high in society, he should have recused himself from this case.
What will he say at a National Council meeting, discussing galamsey and how to end it?And what advice can he give the president, his bosom friend,on this matter?
With the heights he had achieved in this country, Ghanaians havein him, someone who is supposed to defend this country and protect her from nation wreckers and foreign cartels whose agenda is to reap this country off, all its resources and riches.
Unfortunately, with all that Ghana has given and is giving to him, Hon Freddy Blay has collected money from the very people who want to wreck this country.
H.E. Nana Akufo-Addo must be a very sad man, because his very bosom friend who he so much love and trust, has chosen money over him and he is challenging him in court against his stance on galamsey. But shall we tell this to the president?
Wait, ever since Nkrumah was overthrown, the Nkrumaists have wrongly blamed the UP for making that possible and deep inside their hearts they would wish the UP Tradition disappears from the surface of this world.
Hon Freddy Blay may have the desire to achieve this and entered the NPP to collapse it from within.
Because when he was national chairman of the NPP he led the party to an abysmal performance at the polls.
He watched as the party was torn apart with nasty fights and reducing it to a batch of drunken pirates fighting over a loot. And when he came out to speak, he did not volunteer solutions.
In cases, where elders would recuse themselves, Hon Freddy Blay is standing tall and defending foreign invaders who sort to attack and sack this country.
Shall we tell the president, about Hon. Freddy Blay?
Hon. Daniel Dugan
