No wonder the late President Mills died without getting the needed attention from his family and the political vultures that surrounded him. While alive, his inner-circle political comrades and his family might have somehow neglected him. None of them could give him the advice; encouragement and love he most needed to enable him resign from his post to help protect his dwindling health. Voracious vultures as they are, they persuaded him to stay on even though his knees were giving in, with his general health deteriorating at an unprecedented crescendo.
In death, both the State and the family of the late President Mills are treating him with scorn. They are treating his death with the same disgusting callousness as shown him when he was on the last leg of his life. From developments following his death, one can conclude that the government has not been consulting properly with the late President Mills’ family according as required by custom.
I understand funeral arrangements are well advanced to accord the ex-President double burial. He will be buried at Flagstaff House on 10th August 2012. His body will at a later date be exhumed and taken to his birthplace - Ekumfi Otuam for reburial. Who came up with that crap in the first place, I would like to know? Assuming his village lacks the necessary requirements befitting the laying in state of his body cum the congregation of mourners of all categories, nothing then stops his funeral taking place in Accra but not his burial. Nevertheless after according him the last respect befitting of a demised President, his body must straight away be taken to his village for burial in conformity with proper Akan custom.
I disagree with any double burial which is anathema to the Akan custom except under bizarre or extreme circumstances where reason obliges the immediate burial of the body only to be exhumed for reburial later.
The family of ex-President Mills must put their foot down to stop the NDC government and party treating the body of President Mills with the unimaginable disrespect frowned upon by tradition and custom.
What is all the insinuating nonsense about the funeral gear with their funny names that I hear? There are two of them - :”Se asa” and “Aboa bi beka wo a efiri wo ntoma mu?” The NDC have come up with the former name in attempt to castigate the NPP or President Mills’ enemies. The NPP on the other hand have come up with the second name-bearing cloth in an attempt to emphasize that President Mills’ inner-circle team killed him by their actions and inactions. All this petty rivalry bordering on insanity must stop. The family should have come up with their own choice of name-bearing funeral gear that would be binding on all sympathisers and mourners. If they had, they would not have been any cause for what we are witnessing now.
Some people, especially the NDC, are hoping to score cheap political points with the death of President Mills. That will not wash so they had better got some life.
Rockson Adofo
