Pratt Predicted Mills & Rawlings Fight

Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jnr., a social commentator and Managing Editor of “The Insight”, a month before the 2008 Presidential elections, correctly predicted a win for the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, and a subsequent rift between him and ex-President J.J Rawlings, after assuming office in a run-off.

Mr. Pratt is said to have told an American diplomat that Mills and Rawlings were two men whose personalities were diametrically opposed; they had little in common, but had arranged a political marriage of convenience that would be annulled as soon as Prof. Mills was inaugurated.

Should the NDC win, said a report, Mr. Pratt was convinced that Mr. Rawlings would no longer have political voice that resonated with the people, and the victory “will put an end to the Rawlings factor forever.”

This was disclosed in the Wikileaks’ exposure of American diplomatic information gathering activities that included interviews with politicians, media personalities, business men and other public figures. The report was forwarded to Washington by Donald Teitelbaum, US ambassador to Ghana.

Mr. Pratt, who was interviewed, in his own office by American Gary Pergl, officer –in-charge of the political desk at the US Embassy in Accra, on November 21, 2008, said that ex-President Rawlings had no real influence over Mills.

Mr. Pratt is said to have expressed fears that should the New Patriotic Party (NPP) retain power, “Rawlings could gain a new lease of life in national political re-emerging as a redemptive figure hailed by an army of disillusioned and disenfranchised youth,” adding that they would “lose faith in the political system as represented by moderates such as Atta Mills, and more readily succumb to the spell of Rawlings-style demagoguery”

According to Pratt, “Mills was one of the most incorruptible politicians in Ghana. It is just not in his character to take bribes, and in fact, that was why former President Jerry Rawlings chose him as his running-mate in 1996”.

Underscoring Mills incorruptible nature, Rawlings is said to have paid Mills a visit in 1995, when he “was director of Ghana’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS), to check on income figures he had been given by his Finance Minister, Kwesi Botchwey.”

“When those tallies didn’t add up, Rawlings lost faith in Botchwey (who resigned shortly afterwards, following 12 years in that position) and somewhat like Diogenes searching for an honest man, Rawlings chose the political neophyte Atta Mills as his vice-Presidential candidate,” said the report.

The report said that “to prove his point about Mills character, Pratt said that Rawlings had tried to extract a promise that Mills would allow him to name four key Cabinet positions-Foreign Affairs, Interior, Defense and Finance-in exchange for him (Rawlings) and his wife activately campaigning on Mills’ behalf”

According to Pratt, Mills refused the offer from the Rawlingses, based on the principle that he was not going to agree initially and when he is elected, renege on the agreement, “because he is not a man who can go back on his word”.

However, Rawlings and the wife, driven by the fear that retention of the NPP in power could lead to the woman being goaled, campaigned for Mills to be elected.

On Akufo-Addo’s campaign funding, Pratt is reported to have told the Americans that the Libyans provided money. Pratt said Akufo-Addo was less corrupt, as compared to others in the Kufuor government, and was innocent of charges that he had a cocaine habit.

He pointed out, according to the report, that Qaddafi was not responsible for the funding, but it was his (Qaddafi’s) Foreign Minister, with whom Akufo-Addo had established a close relationship during his days as Foreign Minister.

Mr. Pratt is said to have added that Mr. Kuffuor, though controlled the NPP money, never allowed it to “flow into Akufo-Addo’s campaign,” rather “President Kufuor controlled most of the NPP party money that would normally flow into Akufo-Addo’s campaign, and that “he hangs on to a lot of it.”

He told the American about his long-standing personal relationship with Akufo-Addo and Mills “that goes back at least to two decades”, adding that Akufo-Addo’s image had been unfairly tarnished as corrupt.

He described the Kufuor government as very corrupt, with a lot of his officials pocketing huge sums of money, a corruption he described as “astronomical” and “an affront to all Ghanaians.”

“Pratt said that he has a long-standing personal relationship with both Akufo-Addo and John Atta Mills, that goes back at least two decades.

He felt that Akufo-Addo had been unfairly tarnished by the assumption of corruption because of the high-level positions he has held within the Kufuor administration, but that he was, in fact, much cleaner than most of those around him.

Pratt has been a virulent critic of corruption in the Kufuor government, which he labeled as ‘astronomical” and “an affront to all Ghanaians.”

The amounts of money being pocketed by public officials had grown exponentially, he said, because of the discovery of oil and the ever-increasing narcotics trade, but he posited that Akufo-Addo, in his role as Foreign Minister in the second Kufuor administration, did not share in the spoils.

When questioned about persistent rumours of Akufo-Addo’s own cocaine habit, Pratt admitted that he had personal knowledge of the candidate’s drug use, but that it was not cocaine. “Nana used to smoke a lot of marijuana,” Pratt said, “and I’m telling you, a lot. Even in the morning, there used to be a cloud around him, and you could see that he was high.

But I never saw him do cocaine, and I think that is just an assumption people made.”