Ahwoi Should Stop This Nonsense of Blaming Others

Professor Kwamena Ahwoi Should Stop This Nonsense of Blaming Others For The President’s Death—Unless He Knows The Late President Didn’t Die A Natural Death.

Folks, let me first off, share my deepest condolences with all Ghanaians, especially the Family of our late President Mills for his demise. We must all, as children of his, be heavily aggrieved by his passing, and must share in the loss of his direct family. We must pray for Mrs. Naadu Mills and the entire extended family at both Cape Coast and Ekumfi-Otuam for fortitude.

Next, if the content of an Article appearing in the Media, including Ghanaweb.com, (See “ Mills was hounded to his death – Ahwoi” on Ghanaweb.com dated July 31, 2012) happens to be true, I would strongly admonish Professor Ahwoi to stop that nonsense of blaming the President's death on other folks. If the hounding of the President is what caused his death, then, Ahwoi and his cohorts who formed the President's inner chamber of consultants must rather take the blame for it, because they failed to advise him to do otherwise to stay alive.

The continuous vilification of others for having hounded the President to his death is conceding that the late President fatally succumbed to pressure from his critics.

Given that excessive demands on one at his or her job could be stressful, there is always a wise and safe way out. And, if anyone chooses to stay in there to take the heat, that person must be commended for having given all his or her best at a difficult job. Hopefully, no one cajoled the President to stay on against his will. And for whose interest could that coercion really best serve?

The office of the Presidency is a job for serving a Nation, and it ought to be expected that that responsibility comes with humongous pressure. If anyone thinks he or she is not up to that pressure, the extent of which may not be predictable, that person better stay off it. But once in that office, the occupant and his or her advisors must be resilient and nifty enough to navigate around and over that pressure without conceding defeat and leaving trails of ineptitude behind.

So, if Ahwoi is claiming that the late President's death was partly caused by pressure from those that demanded persistently that the late President did some things differently, then Ahwoi is implying he, himself, did not do well enough in his advisory job by the President. He, Ahwoi, then must concede and apologize to the Nation that he failed the late President because he wasn't capable of helping him steer away from or around or over that pressure claimed.

We are not witnessing a case of suicide by the late President, here, (thank God!) to even remotely speculate that he might have been driven by any pressure that he couldn't bear any longer, to take his life.

The President did NOT commit suicide, and cannot be said to have been pushed to his end by some pressures on his job. He died a noble death after a long existing sickness. Period!! We should all respect that. If Ahwoi maintains that the late President died under the pressure of others' who hounded the President, then it is Ahwoi who should be the first to bow his head in shame, and even guilt, for failing to do enough for the President. I must reiterate loudly!

If Ahwoi knew the pressure was too much for the late President, he should have advised the late President to take a break, resign in dignity for weakened health. So, either Ahwoi was incompetent and clueless in his advisory role to the President to see the pressure building to the detriment of the President's health, or he was simply insensitively negligent in his role to aid the President.

If, on the other hand, the late President Mills was appropriately advised to take such a break but chose to, recalcitrantly, defy his advisors, then, that could mean he was passionately confident in his abilities, and was prepared to give the Nation all he had left in his mortal life, and we should honor and thank him immensely for that, and celebrate his courage and sacrifice, even under that pressure.

The continuing finger-pointing at others to apportion blame for the President's death, which hasn't been forensically ruled unnatural, is not healthy for our Nation. Maybe we should not be that surprised by Ahwoi’s claim if we would remember we live in a Society where our Culture blames almost every death on some innocent individual, especially some elderly Lady, or someone else we dislike in the family, to whom we attribute Witchcraft. But coming off the Cultural thing it does not show political maturity on the part of those assigning blame, and it presupposes the Presidency ought to be some position we only have to dole on and pamper its occupant, as some absolute Monarch might expect from his or her subjects, sheltered from criticism.

We are in a Democracy, duh! And many legal and appropriate avenues abound for the President to plead his or her case out to the disenchanted people effectively, including rebutting any accusations and criticisms. That is expected of a vibrant Democracy. We need not to remind Ahwoi of that. If Ahwoi, or anyone else, is not willing and ready to accept that reality, he should simply butt out of Politics, especially in a Cabinet position as he holds now.

Ghana has endured a lot of mischief from our miscreant opportunistic Politicians who only see themselves as replacements to the Colonial Masters who used to demand servitude from us without necessarily ensuring our Society received any benefit back. But as our Society trudges along, even painfully and slowly, with our blatant corruption, mismanagement, complacency, and misuse of our illiterate or patient Electorate, we all must understand and accept the reality that the people would always reserve the right to seek answers to their questions that have long gone unanswered. Every Citizen reserves the right to question authority and demand that the right thing be done. It is not just the number of folks who’d voice out such quandary that matters as much as the consistency and bases of such demands. The grilling of the Government for answers to our problems may be from a few. But their voices may be thunderous, stentorian and persistent. This could be seen as pesky by some in the Government which, for other reasons, has been hesitating in delivering what the Electorate expects.

The entities in Opposition to the incumbent, either in ideology or policy strategy, individually or organized as in Parties, all must be expected to challenge the Government to the hilt. This is what is expected in any vibrant Democracy. We are still adamant in regarding our Political Opponents as personal foes, instead of entities with alternative solutions to our shared problems. So, it is logical to expect that, especially, our older folks who lived and directly experienced grievous hate-filled ideological contests in the past, might retain some relics of those old-time vicious venomous Political enmity and play it out, now. However, those times were different and shrouded in an atmosphere of emerging rejection of long existing intolerance and little societal freedom. We have come far enough now to claim some refinement in our Political disposition, choosing Democracy over dictatorial pseudo-multi Political Party system or even an one-Party system. We have, also, arrived at, decisively rejecting Military governance as imposed on us via Coups. Therefore, our Political leaders in authority must not sift the system to choose which aspects of Democracy they want us apply to them and which they conveniently would have us discard with to give them some undue Political advantage over their Opponents and secure some material benefit to the detrimental exclusion of the rest of the Population.

When things don’t seem to go well with any incumbent Regime for a while, our folks will criticize the Regime. The longer the people wait for an effective response from the Government, the louder the demands would be from the Electorate. This is a fact of Democracy. This is a fact we must pragmatically accept.

The Kwamena Ahwois in our Nation must therefore accept that any criticism against the late President Mills’ performance at the Presidency was not to wish him dead, but to jolt his awareness to the concerns of the Masses. If the President didn’t hear the screams and howls from the Electorate, how could he be under pressure of anyone hounding him. If he, however, heard the screams, yelling, and howling from the frustrated Electorate, and felt some colossal pressure on him that he could not bear, he had the choice to stay in there to give all his best or resign. Any other advice to the President to stay in there to take more than he could have physically and psychologically handled must, then, be blamed on his Advisors, like the dear Professor Ahwoi. Nobody hounded or chased the late President out of Office, let alone drove him to his grave. If that is Professor Ahwoi’s view then unfortunately, the good old Professor missed a lot in Political Science in his long search for academic prowess. By the way, isn’t the same stalwarts of the NDC Party that claimed they would win the General Elections in December, giving the President a second term of Office? How was the late President pushed out of Office if he was that confident he was going to retain his position and rule a second term after the Elections?

I, for one, and many other Ghanaians, believe the late President was passionately self-assured that his effort would yield his expected laudable results for the Nation and wanted to give it all his best, even if it meant losing his life in doing so. That, to me, is indicative of a true Commander-In-Chief and an exemplary Patriot. And I wouldn’t like Professor Ahwoi to take anything away from the late President, under the guise of exposing the ‘enemies’ of our beloved President Atta-Mills. Such would be distracting us from the inadequacies of Professor Ahwoi’s and his cohorts that hindered the late President’s performance from attaining more for the Nation and getting the due publicity it, possibly, deserved.

Let the late President rest in Peace and be assured that Ghanaians appreciated his mite and sacrifice. We do not see him as a weak-hearted, broken President who succumbed to pressures from criticisms. And I believe he understood any such criticism as part of the rigors of a Democracy that he cherished to help sustain and deepen for our posterity.

Long Live The Good Memory and Legacy of the late President Mills!

Long Live Ghana!!!