NDC lied about Mills’ health – Akomea

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its communicators lied about the health of late President John Evans Atta Mills, who died in office in 2012, Nana Akomea, Director of Communications of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said.

Ghana is at the moment marking the fourth anniversary since the passing of Professor Mills. A library has been built and inaugurated in Cape Coast in the Central Region in his honour.

Before he died, there were several concerns expressed by some Ghanaians about his health. But government and NDC communicators kept denying that the president was sick. A series of social media and mainstream media publications were done to dispel rumours about the deteriorating condition of the President.

But Nana Akomea, speaking in an interview with Moro Awudu, host of Inside Politics on Class91.3FM Monday July 25, 2016, during discussions on the commemoration of the fourth anniversary of his death, said there were visible signs that Professor Mills was sick because he interacted with people live on television and was also heard on radio, but his handlers kept denying the fact that he was sick.

According to him, there was no point denying the deteriorating health condition of President Mills because it was obvious. He said if it had been admitted that the president was not well, probably the incessant pressure and criticisms levelled against him to deliver as president would have been moderated.

He told host Moro Awudu: “You are talking of a situation where the man (President Mills) is sick and it’s not just an ordinary man you are talking of [but] the president of the country.

"...So the lesson learnt is that with the kind of sickness that the president had, and everybody could see he was sick, he would have benefited if he had told Ghanaians what was happening [to him]. He would have got a lot of sympathy and will probably have been less stressful to him."