{"id":14851,"date":"2025-01-14T11:30:05","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T11:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=14851"},"modified":"2025-01-14T11:30:05","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T11:30:05","slug":"statue-of-ex-ghana-president-akufo-addo-destroyed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/14851\/statue-of-ex-ghana-president-akufo-addo-destroyed\/","title":{"rendered":"Statue of ex-Ghana President Akufo-Addo destroyed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A statue of Ghana’s immediate former President, Nana Akufo-Addo, put up at the end of last year has been destroyed.<\/p>\n

The unveiling by Akufo-Addo of his own likeness in November in the country’s Western Region\u00a0sparked a social media backlash, as well as being mocked and described as “self-glorification”.<\/p>\n

Its launch had been in honour of the president’s development initiatives.<\/p>\n

On Monday, local media shared images showing the statue in a ruined state, with its severed head lying on the ground. It is not clear who had targeted the sculpture or what the motive was and the police have not commented.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The torso also appears to have been destroyed, and only a damaged pedestal remains in place.<\/p>\n

The statue was made of a mixture of metal, wire mesh, clay, fibre glass and resin, the sculptor Justice Gaisie said.<\/p>\n

Akufo-Addo stepped down as president last week after serving two terms in power. His party’s candidate to replace him was heavily defeated in December’s presidential election.<\/p>\n

The statue had already been partially vandalised last month with one leg being damaged.<\/p>\n

Some local residents had earlier been calling for the sculpture to be removed, but the local authorities had pledged at the time of the initial damage to have it repaired.<\/p>\n

Its destruction has elicited mixed reactions, with some condemning it while others saying there could have been a better way to deal with it.<\/p>\n

One resident told local Citi FM outlet that it was “of no benefit” to the people, “so if it’s destroyed, its normal”.<\/p>\n

Another said this was unfortunate and there should have been a “proper, civil way to get it removed” adding that that the action would have negative consequences for supporters of the former president’s party.<\/p>\n

Joy FM quoted another resident saying he was happy it had been destroyed.<\/p>\n

Last year, critics questioned the use of public funds for its construction especially at a time the country was facing economic hardship.<\/p>\n

Ghana has in recent years been experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation and last year received a $3bn (\u00a32.5bn) bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).<\/p>\n

The cost-of-living crisis was a key campaign issue in last month’s election.<\/p>\n

President John Mahama, who won the vote in a landslide, has in the past criticised the erection of the statue.<\/p>\n

He said it was up to the people to honour the former president for his achievements, describing the statue as insensitive given the hardships being faced by the people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A statue of Ghana’s immediate former President, Nana Akufo-Addo, put up at the end of last year has been destroyed. The unveiling by Akufo-Addo of his own likeness in November in the country’s Western Region\u00a0sparked a social media backlash, as well as being mocked and described as “self-glorification”. Its launch had been in honour of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"BBC","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[1163,378],"class_list":["post-14851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-international-monetary-fund-imf","tag-nana-akufo-addo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}