This Saturday, June 4 2011, the mother of all boom speeches is expected from NDC founder, Flt. Lt. (Rtd) Jerry John Rawlings. Would it live up to its expected booming resonance or end in an anticlimax?
The boom will most likely be a regurgitation of stuff he has been hurling at Ghanaians these past 32 years.
He will for example talk about how some people have not learnt from the “lessons” of June 4; he would talk about the “sacrifices” of June 4 “heroes” which should not be allowed to go in vain; he would talk about betrayal and traitors and hold up the “achievements” of the “revolutions” and how some people are rolling them back; he would talk about how there cannot be peace without justice; he would probably dredge out Dagbon and Molbila; he would attack the NPP’s “record” of “corruption” and how the party used 8 years to destroy Ghana and go on and on in the vein of the proverbial cracked record expressing the “anger of the people”.
He would perhaps release the Herbert Mensah tapes and also reveal the identities of the murderers of Ghanaian women in and around Accra, which he says he has; he would take swipes at “greedy bastards…”
But…
The main thrust of the boom this time would be directed at the NDC, which he and his wife have vowed to “take back”.
President Mills, his appointees and government would be at the receiving end of the booming tongue lashing.
He would accuse them of corruption, failing to live up to the tenets of the June 4 and December 31 “revolutions” and betraying the principles that led to the formation of the NDC; he would make no mention of the social democratic values adopted by the NDC as party philosophy, he would read out a litany of the “failures” of the Mills administration and reserve special venom for the administration’s inability to prosecute (persecute) and jail former NPP functionaries; he would attack the “slow” pace of the administration’s Better Ghana Agenda and how foot soldiers have been let down and in all probability end with the call for President Mills’ ouster at the NDC congress in Sunyani next month.
But…
There is also speculation that he could “swerve” those who expect that kind of boom by making a reconciliatory speech, perhaps even hinting at his wife’s possible withdrawal from the race (wishful thinking here).
Going by his track record, it is unlikely that he would be reconciliatory, so the boom would ring out loud and clear and widen the fissures in the NDC.
The NDC and the administration would also have to take a stance on this 32nd anniversary of the June 4 mutiny.
To support it would be to encourage a platform that would be exploited to spell their doom and to openly disclaim it would also be a poke directly in the “founder’s” eyes which some people in the NDC do not have the stomach for.
Either way, it is the parable of the “santrofi anoma” all over again. President Mills himself is expected not to wade into an open warfare, no matter what booms ring out from the founder this Saturday.
This Monday he submitted his nomination papers to General Mosquito, after which he would intensify his campaign to woo delegates, who are widely tipped to endorse him as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2012 elections.
In a related development, The Accra Mail has learnt that his challenger, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings is lashing out at “traitors” and those who have “betrayed” her.
She is particularly incensed at some close cronies who have “defected” to President Mills and media personalities whom she says are writing and saying all sorts of things against her.
All in all then, Saturday’s boom may yet be the swan song of the man who was once sacrilegiously parading round as Junior Jesus.
