Award-winning actress and movie producer Yvonne Nelson, in her recently released memoir, posits that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, contrary to the person he was projected to be while in opposition, has turned out to be a disappointment.
According to her, 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.”
Yvonne Nelson’s activism is deemed by many political critics as very important in President Akufo-Addo’s eventual first-term election in 2016 after he had failed on two consecutive occasions.
The actress and movie producer, aside from being critical of the then National Democratic Congress government led by John Dramani Mahama, was a lead organizer of the famous ‘Dumsor Vigil’ on May 16, 2015.
The event was a public protest led mainly by people in the entertainment and arts industry with the aim of putting pressure on the government to end the energy crisis that was confronting the nation at the time.
However, since the election of the NPP into power in 2016 and their re-election in 2020, Yvonne Nelson, whose activities were deemed crucial to the NDC being voted out of office, has become critical of President Akufo-Addo’s government.
In her newly released 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.
While some critics have sought to associate her with the president and the NPP, the actress, in her book, while noting her disappointment in Akufo-Addo’s governance, emphasized that she “certainly does not wish to associate with a politician who is projected as one thing but becomes the polar opposite of that when elected into office.”