The Executive Director of the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana) says President Kufuor’s decision to postpone the awards ceremony at which some prominent Ghanaians including former Vice President John Atta Mills will be given national honours, as a result of pressure from the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) is a sign of weakness.
Prof. Emmanuel Gyimah Boadi says, it is also a sign of intolerance in Ghana’s democratic dispensation.
Last Saturday May 24, 2008, the office of the President released a list of 158 Ghanaians including the former Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) who were nominated for national awards to be conferred on them on July 3, 2008.
Prof. Mills was nominated for the highest national award of Companion of the Star of Ghana.
Since the announcement was made, both the NPP and the NDC have sought to make political capital or otherwise of the nomination. Some have asked why the former President Rawlings was not honoured and his vice was being honoured.
Some NPP members saw the nomination as an endorsement of the NDC candidate Prof. Atta Mills, which makes him a threat to the ambitions of their Presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo. While the NDC also saw it as an enbdorsement of their candidate, Prof. Atta Mills by President Kufuor.
As the wrangling was going on, a postponement of the awards ceremony was announced. It has now been rescheduled to take place in two parts , one in November 2008 and the other in January 2009.
Prof. Gyimah Boadi described the postponement as “shocking and dismaying.” He was of the opinion that all the awards should be given on the same day, saying “some sort of monkey wrench has been thrown into it mainly on unmeritorious grounds.” He expressed concern that the awards have been so politicised.
He said if the postpone was because of the agitations of those who have politicised it, then “it is a dent on the image of tolerance and accommodation that the country has been cultivating.”
Prof. Gyimah Boadi said he believes Prof. Mills was being given the award “on the grounds of what he has achieved already and not what he is going to be in the future,” he asked Ghanaians to remember that Prof. Mills has been of great service to this nation when he graciously conceded defeat after the 2000 elections to pave way for the first incidence of peaceful change of government through the ballot box. He acknowledged that by that action, Prof. Mills “did Ghanaians a big favour and that was a big credit to his credentials as a democrat.”
He said in his view therefore, Prof. Mills eminently deserves the award, and he is saddened that the award ceremony is being postponed.
Prof. Gyimah Boadi was concerned that the reactions of some of the members of the NPP reflect a certain intolerance and entrenched inability to accommodate people of other political views.
He said the attitudes of the parties are misguided.
He said the fact that President Kufuor has succumbed to these pressures shows that “he is not a strong leader.”
He argued that “there is merit in sticking to established principles in taking decisions, otherwise you look fickle, and in this case the President looks fickle.”
