National Vice Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Henry Nana Boakye, popularly known as Nana B, has denied seeking a favour from Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa to retain his service passport.
He has accused the Majority in Parliament of using the passport controversy to divert public attention from questions surrounding the alleged GH¢16.4 million spent on evacuating Ghanaians from South Africa.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, Nana B rejected claims 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 alleged that Mr Asafo-Adjei’s criticism of the Minister was motivated by his refusal to grant a request for a former NPP national organiser to retain his service passport.
Nana B described the allegation as “weak, diversionary, unreasonable and a red herring,” arguing that it was intended to deflect attention from concerns about possible corruption raised by Mr Asafo-Adjei.
Nana B explains passport controversy
The NPP official clarified that he had held only a service passport and had never possessed a diplomatic passport.
He said he surrendered the service passport in compliance with a directive from the President, as published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
According to him, his request to Mr Ablakwa was not to retain the passport but to obtain a formal letter notifying the relevant embassies that visas contained in the service passport should be transferred to his ordinary passport.
Nana B said Mr Ablakwa personally asked him to get Mr Asafo-Adjei to follow up on the letter, a request he said he fulfilled.
“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.
He maintained that Mr Asafo-Adjei had not sought any special favour from the Minister but had merely followed up on the letter at Mr Ablakwa’s request.
“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 expressed concern that the Majority had displayed the biographical data page of his service passport, which he said was in the custody of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Nana B demands answers on GH¢16.4m evacuation expenditure
Turning to the evacuation expenditure, Nana B accused the Majority of attempting to shield Mr Ablakwa from accountability over the alleged GH¢16.4 million spending.
He argued that the concerns raised by Mr Asafo-Adjei were based on information submitted by the Minister himself and should not be 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.
“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 statement, however, did not provide a detailed breakdown of the alleged inconsistencies in the evacuation expenditure.
The claims of possible corruption and concerns about the accounting for the funds remain allegations raised by Nana B. The statement did not establish that any wrongdoing had occurred.
