National Vice Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Henry Nana Boakye, popularly known as Nana B, has denied asking Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa for a favour to retain his service passport, accusing the Majority in Parliament of diverting attention from questions surrounding the GH¢16.4 million spent on evacuating Ghanaians from South Africa.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, Nana B rejected allegations by the Majority that the Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Nana Asafo-Adjei, was pursuing a personal vendetta against Mr Ablakwa over the passport issue.
The Majority had suggested that Mr Asafo-Adjei’s criticism of the Foreign Affairs Minister was linked to the Minister’s alleged refusal to grant a request for Nana B, a former NPP national organiser, to retain his service passport.
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Nana B, however, described the allegation as “weak, diversionary, unreasonable and a red herring”, arguing that it was intended to deflect attention from concerns about possible financial irregularities raised by Mr Asafo-Adjei.
He explained that he had held only a service passport and had never possessed a diplomatic passport. According to him, he surrendered the service passport in compliance with a presidential directive announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Nana B said his request to Mr Ablakwa was not to retain the service passport but to obtain an official letter notifying embassies whose visas were contained in the document so the visas could be transferred to his ordinary passport.
He further claimed that Mr Ablakwa personally asked him to contact Mr Asafo-Adjei to follow up on the letter, a request he said he honoured.
“Okudzeto Ablakwa personally requested that I inform Hon. Asafo Adjei to follow up on the letter, which I did, but after one visit, Hon. Asafo Adjei was informed the letter was not ready; hence, I abandoned it and applied for new visas,” he said.
The NPP national vice chairman maintained that Mr Asafo-Adjei had not sought any special treatment from the Minister, insisting that the legislator had merely followed up on the administrative request at Mr Ablakwa’s direction.
“I never requested to retain the passport because doing so would have been unreasonable as a national executive of the opposition party,” Nana B added.
He also questioned why the Majority had displayed the biographical data page of his service passport, which he said remained in the custody of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Shifting attention to the evacuation of Ghanaians from South Africa, Nana B accused the Majority of attempting to shield Mr Ablakwa from scrutiny over the reported GH¢16.4 million expenditure.
He argued that Mr Asafo-Adjei’s concerns were based on information submitted by the Foreign Affairs Minister himself and should therefore be addressed on their merits rather than dismissed as a personal dispute.
“The majority should not take discerning Ghanaians for fools by suggesting that a member of Parliament’s exposition on possible corruption to the tune of GHS16.4 million, based on data submitted by Okudzeto himself, is a personal vendetta,” he said.
Nana B urged the Majority to demand explanations from the Minister over what he described as serious inconsistencies in documents relating to the evacuation expenditure.
He also invoked President John Dramani Mahama’s commitment to accountability, arguing that the government’s parliamentary majority should ensure that questions about the use of public funds receive appropriate answers.
“President Mahama promised Ghanaians accountability, and the majority should call Okudzeto Ablakwa to answer the serious inconsistencies in the documents submitted regarding the expenditure on the evacuation of citizens,” he said.
The controversy has brought renewed attention to the evacuation expenditure and the competing claims by the Majority and the Minority over the handling of public funds.
However, Nana B’s statement did not provide a detailed breakdown of the alleged inconsistencies in the evacuation documents. The claims of possible corruption and the alleged failure to account for the funds remain allegations, and the statement did not establish that any wrongdoing had occurred.
The passport controversy and the evacuation expenditure therefore remain separate issues that require evidence-based clarification from the parties involved.