By the time Nana Konadu wakes up to reality…

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Folks, Nana Konadu says that she has had the worst Christmas experience, not because the NDC government has failed to satisfy her but because of the death of her mother. (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/I-wept-on-Christmas-day-Rawlings-403693). Oyiwa!! The death of a dear one is traumatizing; not so?

Has she ever paused to wonder how survivors or living victims of the political force led by her husband have coped with life over the period? It’s a reality check coming to her in the nadir of her political life. A serious case for analysis of human affairs, my good friends.

Folks, I have been very much insistent in condemning Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings for all that she has become in the Ghanaian political arena. As the longest-serving First Lady of this country, manipulating the fortunes of the 31st December Women’s Movement (that she didn’t form but managed to appropriate to political and personal advantage), and ascending the height as the 1st National Vice Chair of the NDC, she should be counted as a very lucky woman of means.

Not only that. She survived the vicissitudes of whatever happened in the dastardly abduction and murder of the three High Court Judges in 1982 (first because it was her official vehicle that was commandeered by Amedeka and Co. for the operation; and second because the Justice Crabbe Special Investigations Board didn’t find any evidence to pin her down as a direct accomplice or perpetrator of that crime). Nana Konadu reigned supreme within the period, emerging as the First Lady that Ghana hadn’t seen before or expected to be so overweening and overpowering. Those of us who got close to her as she cut her paths on the political terrain aren’t dead to that reality. She doesn’t know us for what we are, but we know her for all that we did to secure her and make her feel that she is the be-it-all-and-end-it-all at the end of the tunnel. But she isn’t it.

Wind back the hand of the clock to those days and you’d see Nana Konadu behind everything that some represented in Ghanaian politics. Let’s give her the credit for championing that cause and leading a delegation to the international conference on “Affirmative Action”. But at the end of it all, what happened? Especially when Rawlings’ era came to an end and the test began for the real stuff of which the pro-Rawlings adherents were made of?

Nana Konadu’s loss of the bid to lead the NDC to Election 2008 set her off on a spiral from which she hasn’t recovered to date and won’t recover for as long as she remains bloated with revenge against those she sees as her nemesis. We know of how her bitterness against the late Atta Mills even prevented her from attending his memorial service and burial ceremony.

Not only that. She has carried that bitterness along with her to the most bizarre extent as to split from the NDC (the very incubator of her political ambitions) to spearhead the efforts of the amorphous NDP with one gladiatorial purpose of goring the NDC out of Ghanaian politics. Need we talk about her claims to have been the creator of the NDC emblem and the desire to divest the party of it? Or many other instances of glaring predation? Too disheartening. But she failed.

More unsettling for her, she lost the bid to contest the 2012 elections because the EC disqualified her for not being able to meet standards. She went ballistics but wouldn’t change her own dynamics apart from spiraling toward the NPP and its Akufo-Addo that she had spent resources undermining. When the dogs start eating back their own vomit, they set themselves up for scrutiny.

So has it been for Nana Konadu. We know of the family problems that have so far unsettled her, even if she has maintained a straight face and pretended to be weathering the storm. Rawlings himself has withdrawn to the background, which raises eyebrows but confirms long-held suspicions that Nana Konadu is such a prime-mover in the affairs of the Rawlingses as not to be challenged without dreadful consequences. She is the SHE that must be obeyed!!

Okay for her. Unfortunately, when it comes to the operations of Nature, nothing is ever Okay for human beings. So it is that her mother has passed on. We know how attached Konadu was to her mom, even rushing to seek shelter with her when the Ridge residence of the Rawlingses got burnt beyond recovery.

All along, she has acted like a woman with a “man’s heart” to soak up the pressure; but the death of her mother seems to be revealing all that there is to know about her. She is telling Ghanaians today that she has had a dreadful Christmas season this year because of the passing away of her mother just because she has had no “shelter” to rely on. Interesting. The Nigerian musician, Prince Nico Mbarga and his group have already attuned Ghanaians to the relevance of “Sweet Mother”. So, after all, Nana Konadu has human feelings?

Folks, the above question needs to be situated because it is foundational to all the perceptions about the Rawlingses as “murderers” and “opportunists” who abused the Ghanaian system to establish themselves in coziness at the expense of those whose businesses and lives they cut short. Don’t get me wrong. The advent of the Rawlingses has a long tortuous history to be interpreted, depending on who is doing the interpretation. The truth, though, is that Nana Konadu is fingered as a bad influence on Rawlings. For some time now, Rawlings has been in the shadows while she is in the limelight, saying horrible things about President Mahama and his government and creating the negative impression that an NPP government will serve better purposes. Yet, this is one woman who has sacrificed her lot to work against the NPP. So, what must be happening? What is it that has made her desert the comfort of her NDC home for that of the NPP, especially the Akufo-Addo that she had loudly condemned as not being a qualified lawyer?

And why would she quickly swallow her own vomit at the time that she chose to hate President Mahama and the NDC and turn to Akufo-Addo as her safe haven? Such a Jezebel in our time is death-on-wheels to be avoided. Can she tell us who founded the NDP that she is leading? And why she is the hen eating her own eggs (especially if we juxtapose her daughter, Dr. Zanetor’s political quests against her damaging political intrigues, even though Rawlings is all out to support her ambitions)? Why is Nana Konadu so bitter? All those who worked with her in the hey-days of the December 31 Women’s Movement have become her foes. The same applies to Rawlings too. Why are their long-time friends now their foes? Why are they not able to retain friendships at the political level? Why is the opportunistic Herbert Mensah also now their bitter foe? What exactly is wrong with the Rawlingses?

There is a lot to ponder over. But the truth is that Nana Konadu is gradually coming to terms with reality that life is precious and must be protected. That is why her claiming to have been devastated by the death of her mother and for not enjoying Christmas as she thought she would should be placed in context and analyzed. Who really cares about her now? I don’t. If you do, then, it is your responsibility to find out from her why the death of all others caused by her husband’s government of “probity and accountability” doesn’t matter as much as that of her mother in the peace of her home.

These are issues that the NPP people who led campaigns of calumny against the Rawlingses should be interrogating before rushing headlong into alliances with them in the mistaken belief that once they get the green light from the Rawlingses as political allies they will be thumb-printed to rule Ghana. There is a lot of mischief here that the Ghanaian voter will quickly see through before making his/her electoral decision. As the situation stands now, any mindless appreciation of issues will send the NPP people into a tailspin from which they will not recover until Election 2020. No more!!

I shall return…

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