By: Kobina Antobam
Before the death of Ghana’s only incorruptible honest President other than Kwame Nkrumah, John Evans Atta Mills, the uncontrollable and disturbingly loud rabble-rouser, Mr. trigger happy “shoot-from-the-hip” ex-President Jeremiah John Rawlings verbally and practically disrespected, hounded and attacked President Mills without an iota of compunction.
Just as soon as Mills was elected, Rawlings, true to form, dismissed the pain directed at his intended target and embarked on a scathing and serrated shredding of the late President’s performance. Rawlings felt that if he made Mills, and Mills would not allow Rawlings to run his life, he would go to the ends of the world to break Mills. Rawlings threw all circumspection and his “ownership” of the National Democratic Congress to the wind and joined the opposition to publicly rip Mills to shreds.
He did not stop there. Rawlings, who has no sense of contrition, couldn’t contain himself, and in partnership with his wife, Mrs. Konadu Rawlings, unabashedly insulted the sitting President by encouraging Mrs. Rawlings to unseat President Mills. As expected, the former first couple failed miserably at the last NDC primaries and Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings are yet to recover from the shock of that decisive electoral “no-confidence” rejection.
From that point on, the former first couple wanted President Mills to fail and fail miserably, too. They wanted to and really tried to reclaim the party’s name and logo. Disguised as their genuine concern for the welfare of the country, the well-known attitudes of the two spoiled brats, “I don’t like you, so you can’t play with my toys anymore,” aptly symbolized the constant public tantrums of the Rawlingses.
Filled with disdain for President Mills, bloated with self-relevance, and with delusions of mass support, which, in reality, was dissipating quickly and which they arrogantly refused to accept, the Rawlingses decided to form a new party that they thought would siphon current NDC support to their side. Their delusions extended to a strong desire to see NDC hemorrhage and fizzle into nonexistence. That campaign of attrition against the party they helped establish seems to have rather fizzled on its own.
Rawlings also embarked on vengeful and demoralizing iterations of President Mills’ impending loss in the upcoming elections. Not only did this curmudgeon, Rawlings, publicly declare that he and his wife would not join in the NDC campaign for the reelection of President Mills, he rubbed feces in Mills’ face by telling him in advance of the upcoming elections that the sitting President was a loser.
Even in death, President Mills could not escape Rawlings’ odd and weird obsequy of self-serving explanations for the unfortunate passing of President Mills in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation. Rawlings finally topped off his rhetorical struggles with a “look at what I did for Professor Mills” tribute that produced no redemptive or face saving results for him and his wife.
Here is a closing word of revelation for Mr. Rawlings: the decent and a better behaved gentleman, John Evans Atta Mills, is heartily laughing at you from heaven. Rawlings may not hear it, but Ghanaians who truly respect the late Mills can easily hear his reverberating payback guffaws. You were certain that he was going to lose the upcoming elections. HOWEVER, HE HAS CUNNINGLY CHEATED YOU OUT OF YOUR DESIRED GOAL AND SATISFACTION COME DECEMBER 2012. He is no longer in contention for the election of Ghana’s next President. So, do you, in retrospect, really want to tell Ghanaians that you would have been a completely satiated human being if President Mills had lived and lost the elections? I am afraid you might carry this unrequited emptiness for the rest of your life because Atta Mills cannot come back to redeem you.
Mr. Rawlings, considering your violent beginnings, some display of humility and some quiet private reflections now can provide an essential spiritual nourishment and healing for the remainder of your short existence this earth, but your oft heralded unchecked arrogance and paternalistic condescension, which often become your badge of dishonor, will contribute greatly to your ongoing freefall and ultimate undoing and your wife’s, too.
Good day.
Please, see a related article on June 28, 2012 on: http://ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=243199&comment=0#com
