A Ghanaian academic and political commentator, Dr Razak Kojo Opoku, has issued a detailed public statement disputing long-standing claims that renowned historian and politician Prof. Albert Adu Boahen was ill during the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) 1996 presidential contest.

In a statement, the author argues that there is no credible evidence to support assertions that Prof. Adu Boahen’s performance in the 1996 elections was affected by sickness.

According to the statement, neither Prof. Adu Boahen himself, his immediate family, nor key political associates ever publicly indicated that he was unwell during that period.

Dr. Opoku notes that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who served as Prof. Adu Boahen’s campaign manager in 1996 and is widely regarded as his political protégé, has never confirmed claims that Prof. Adu Boahen was sick during the NPP presidential race.

He further states that Prof. Adu Boahen did not, in any of his writings, attribute his electoral outcome to health challenges.

The statement maintains that Prof. Adu Boahen’s health problems began four years later, following the 1996 elections. According to Dr. Opoku, Prof. Adu Boahen suffered strokes in 2000 and 2001, which subsequently affected his public life. These health challenges reportedly prevented him from taking up a proposed appointment to the Council of State under President John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration in 2001.

Dr. Opoku also asserts that Prof. Adu Boahen remained active and healthy during the NPP’s 2000 campaign period, during which he publicly supported J. A. Kufuor in what became a successful election that ended nearly two decades of NDC rule.

Despite declining health after 2000, Prof. Adu Boahen reportedly continued to contribute to scholarship.

In 2003, two major works associated with him were published: Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh’s “The History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole Country Itself”, edited by a team of leading historians, and a monograph on Yaa Asantewaa and the Asante-British War of 1900–1901, edited by Prof. Emmanuel Akyeampong.

Prof. Adu Boahen spent much of the final years of his life receiving medical care at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra, where he died on 24 May 2006, coinciding with his 74th birthday.

Dr. Opoku’s statement concludes by urging the public and political commentators to “disregard all false narratives” regarding Prof. Adu Boahen’s health during the 1996 elections, emphasising the importance of historical accuracy in Ghana’s political discourse