Mills 'Hangs' Nana Addo

By Kofi Yeboah

President John Evans Attah Mills yesterday asserted that he would not renege on his mandate as Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces and President of the Republic, to allow this country to slip into chaos and destruction because of one person’s unbridled political ambition.

Consequently, he said: “…… having sworn to protect the integrity of Mother Ghana, I have put the security agencies on red alert, and they are under strict instructions to deal decisively within the ambit of the law, with anybody or group of persons who will attempt to disturb the peace and stability of this dear nation of ours”.

In his State of the Nation Address at the Parliament House in Accra, President Mills cautioned that politicians and people in leadership position bore the responsibility of ensuring that their “actions and utterances do not incite lawlessness, and damage our sense of community”.

“Let us all keep one thing in mind; just because you have the right to say something does not mean you should. Exercising good judgement is important”, the President underscored.

In reaction to the President’s address, the minority NPP said it was more of party politicking than a state of the nation address, and that there was no need for the President to say he had put the security agencies on red alert, apparently in reaction to Nana Akuffo Addo’s “All Die-be Die” statement

Some of them including K.T Hammond, Mathew Opoku Prempeh, and Kyei Mensah-Bonsu described the address as a joke of the century.

Readers will recall that Nana Akuffo Addo incited party faithful recently at Koforidua in the Eastern Region that as Akans, they should not accept the outcome of the 2012 elections if it should not go in their favour but to fight back to ensure a reversal of such a decision.

Meanwhile, some leading members of the Women’s Aglow, a non-denominational grouping of religious women, have condemned the recent statement made by Nana Addo as unstatemanly, and capable of throwing the country into strife.

The women, who pleaded for anonymity because the leadership of the group had not taken any position on the matter, wondered why they should be holding monthly intercessionary prayers at the Independence Square in Accra and other parts of the country for peace to prevail, only for Akuffo Addo to start preparing the minds of his party faithful for mayhem should it (party) lose the 2012 elections.

“I wonder if he is aware of the strenuous efforts we make regularly to gather at the Independence Square and elsewhere, as women, to pray for the peace of this country only for him to come out of the blue and make such comments capable of throwing the country into chaos and destruction,” said one of them.

According to her, one does not necessarily need to be president of this country to be of service to it, and asked:

“When he (Nana Addo) was the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and Minister of Foreign Affairs during Kufuor’s regime, what did he do that was exceptional for Ghanaians to remember him?”

Another woman also said that she was disgusted and appalled at Nana Addo’s outburst at this time that La Cote D’Ivoire was going through political turmoil.

“Even during the 1992 elections that ex-President Rawlings was said to have positioned himself advantageously as match commissioner, referee and player, and ultimately declared himself as winner of the contest, the worst the NPP did was to write the “Stolen Verdict”, she said.

“The late Professor Adu Boahen, then the flagbearer of the NPP, did not, in his wisdom, incite his party members to wage war against Rawlings’ decision,” she added, cautioning that Nana Addo was not a presidential material Ghanaians could rely on.

Meanwhile, when The Herald called Mrs. Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie, a leading member of Women’s Aglow and ex-President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), for her comment, she said she had no comment to make on the issue.