Have you ever wondered what inspired this string of nomenclatures that stands as our president’s name? Oh well, before now, you may not have had any reason to border…
Since after indicating interest in Ghana’s presidency, that was 16 years ago; we have seen different versions of name popping up as the identity of the man we call our president today. Although a lot of Ghanainas may not have bordered to ask what the real name of our president is, many are disturbed by the fact that the most widely used among the string of names – ‘Nana’, is not even a name.
From the time of the colonial masters till the time of Ghanaian presidents, never have people been faced with the challenge of having to go through learning a full fledged tongue twister, all in the business of calling out a president’s name! Even in countries where it is the norm to possess a string of names, those who attain positions of public leadership try as much as possible to reduce the string to something more manageable; at least for official purposes.
But here in Ghana right now, we have a man, of course, our president, who have thrown away what would have made a very nice name for a President of his calibre; think of something like this – President William Akufo-Addo; or if he is not in love with a foreign name, President Dankwa Akufo-Addo could still be very much acceptable.
Before now, we’ve had lovely and simple-to-pronounce names like Kwame Nkrumah, Jerry Rawlings, John Kufuor, Atta Mills, John Mahama. Although all these leaders have their middle, and other names, a reasonable level of stability is maintained in what stands as their identities.
And who even says that American Presidents who usually bear the simplest of names do not have some other names they could have jumbled up to make up something similar to that of our president’s name? How manyvtimes did you get to see Barack Obama addressed as President Barack Hussein Obama? Or Bill Clinton as William Jefferson Bill Clinton, and so on?
Funny enough, this William Nana Katakyi Kyeretwie Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was christened William Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo at birth – according to Wikipedia. Now we ask, from whence cometh this Nana Nana Nana that has taken over everything you could think of as our president’s name.
Currently, the President’s official website addresses him as Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. This gives us the hint that the two most difficult part of his name as presented earlier – ‘Katakyi’ and ‘Kyeretwie’, are not official. But for crying out loud, why did Mr. Akufo-Addo replace William with Nana? Is it to emphasize his being a septuagenarian? Of course every Ghanaian knows that ‘Nana’ is a fond name for grannies.
It has been circulating recently on the media that the president do not want to be addressed as “His Excellency”. Well, I don’t think Ghanaians have got any problem with that. The “His Excellency” accolade does not in anyway pose the kind of difficulty his tongue-twisting and never definite name is posing to his numerous addressees.
Come to think of it; you are writing something about your president, and at each point you want to mention his name, you pause to ponder over the version that will go for that moment. You peruse through what you have written so far, to know the one you used last and the one to use next – is it President Nana Akufo-Addo, or Nana Addo; President Addo, or simply Nana – that’s quite ridiculous!
Worse still, imagine yourself reading any of the media publications, and you come across these different names addressing just one person in just one write up. Would you have easily known it is the same one and only person that is being talked about if you are not Ghanaian?
One may as well trash this worries as unimportant, or as an unnecessary fuss and headeache over nothing. But the fact is; we would not have cared if the man that has this name issue is not the President of the Republic of Ghana!
So now, having read this, we are full of anticipation that you would bail us out. That is, by telling us, what is really our president’s name.
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