JJ's Letter Irresponsible - Esseku

The National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Haruna Esseku has stated that the letter written to His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by Mr. Rawlings was a breach of diplomatic protocol.

He explained in a statement issued last Saturday in Accra that only Heads of State could correspond directly with each other. "He has obviously, behaved in an irresponsible manner and it is clear that he still suffers from the delusion that he is still the Head of State of Ghana."

Mr. Esseku said it was certainly very rude on Mr. Rawlings' part to address the Heads of State on purely internal matters of Ghana in respect of which they could do nothing. According to the chairman, his behaviour was a breach of Ghana's sovereignty and this could only cause embarrassment to the Heads of State and Governments concerned.

"Mr. Rawlings's behaviour is also an insult to the people of Ghana because he is creating the impression that Ghanaians are subject to the control and dictate of those foreign countries," he stated, adding it was, above all, an insult to the President because it ignored his status as the only legally elected Head of State and Government.

He informed the people of Ghana and the world that the latitude that had been given the ex-President should not be deemed by him, nor by any one else, a sign of weakness, or condoning of his persistently subversive and irresponsible utterances. "One day, he would go one step too far and would be confronted with the moment of truth," he warned.

He noted that all the allegations leveled against President Kufuor and his administration by Rawlings, were practically, a recall of what he and his NDC government had been doing. Mr. Esseku expressed the hope that Ghanaians had not forgotten the malignant monopoly Ex-President Rawlings, his wife and his party exercised over the state media. "The people of Ghana, I am sure, have vivid memories of the almost daily appearance of his wife on state television."

He was of the view that what Mr. Rawlings was saying and doing now should give Ghanaians a fair picture of what to expect if his party and its candidate, Rawlings' handpicked John Atta Mills, were voted into power. He assured that in spite of the lies and machinations of the ex-President, the NPP was moving forward to victory.