Mills Falls Into Npp Psychological Booby-Trap

NDC/ Mills will never understand the issues. Naïve, inexperienced and simplistic as they are, they will always play into NPP psychological games unknowingly.

The classic case is recalled in the last elections, and the 2000/2004 elections. NPP activists famously went to town that a vote for Mills will be a vote for Rawlings. This was after the Swedru declaration of Prof Mills as the leader of the NDC, by the outgoing President Rawlings.

Later Mills himself openly declared that he would be consulting Rawlings 24 hours a day, in the event he won the Presidency. Mills obvious meant that he would not leave out Rawlings in deliberations towards taking critical decisions. This is natural and normal management technique with any protégé.

NPP seized the opportunity to campaign aggressively and rightly so that Mills was not his own man. One writer went to the extreme and described would-be President Mills as timid and a ‘poodle’ or toy – who is there to be manipulated, controlled and used by Rawlings to achieve his selfish ends. At that time, Rawlings was still dreaded as a schemer and Ghanaians having had too much of the dictatorial and fascist tendencies of Rawlings, who had ruled for about 20 years , were eager and ready to divorce themselves completely from anything Rawlings and his tendencies. Analysts believe this psychological game NPP played, played a large part in keeping Mills away from the Presidency in 2000 and 2004. Enter 2009 and Mills eventually won the Presidency after 3 trials and after bitter psychological struggles in attempts to convince Ghanaians that he is his own man --- and which eventually won the day for him.

President Mills hit the ground running to play the confident and his woes started but naively he did not appreciate. After convincing himself that he was capable to do it alone, he was determined to assert and affirm his authority over the party and the government, of course as the President. Of course, the hawks at the presidency, including the Ahwois, Koku Anyidoho, Kojo Tsikata, Kofi Awoonor, Kobby Acheampong, Felix Ofosu-Kwake and the others who Rawlings described as the greedy bastards, - who had their own firm agenda to pursue- goaded him on. In the process, President Mills, basking in a false Asomdweehene glory, overdid it. There were unnecessary things he did. Mills was emphatic to prove himself to NPP and Ghanaians that he had arrived—yes, the only President with the authority. He made his own appointments, took his own executive decisions, just did his own things to snob Rawlings-- thinking falsely that he was rather shaming NPP. Mills overdid it. All his- ‘I am the only President in Ghana. I am the only President in Ghana’- proclamations were geared towards--- 1. Snubbing Rawlings and 2. Putting NPP to shame. Little did Mills appreciate that he was embarking on an expensively negative political strategy. Mills simply miscalculated and has fallen clean, headlong into NPP strategic and psychological booby-trap.

The fact is NPP’s mantra that ---‘Mills is not his own man. A vote for Mills is a vote for Rawlings’ --was a sharp two-edged sword. Both sides of the sword were damaging. This was what Mills failed to discern. Mills feared, the side of the sword whereby Mills had to consult Rawlings often, would present NPP and Ghanaians the chance to say— We Told You So. So he did not go there at all.

Mills rather chose the other side of the sword and ignored Rawlings the Founder of NDC completely in his administration to shame NPP. This has given chances to the greedy bastards to dance Agbadza, Fontomfrom and Damba unnecessarily and freely around the Founder. Even when the rented NDC crowd shouted -Away -Away -Away - to Rawlings and his wife at their Sunyani congress and erratic Asiedu Nketsia later referred to the Founder as a tamed barking dog, myopic Mills failed to appreciate the damage being inflicting on himself and his party by that crude and unwarranted alienation of the Founder. Mills was rather pleased. When I hear NDC activists boast that Mills has proved NPP wrong, by weaning himself from Rawlings, I laugh. Somebody must tell Mills and his myopic and pathetic bunch of advisers that by their actions of complete alienation of Rawlings the Founder of their party, all aimed at shaming NPP, --- Mills has rather entangled himself in NPP psychological booby-trap. NDC YOU DON’T KNOW THE THING. LET US SHOW YOU THE THING. It seems to be now too late to redeem the Mills/Rawlings relationship. The backlash is one of the reasons why NDC are wobbling, waggling and wiggling in the run-up to the December national elections. Check out why, NDC run-up towards the celebration of their JUNE 4th is in tatters.

Naïve Mills will never understand the issues until he meets his eventual fate- come December. So Mills/NDC must answer the question--- so who won the psychological game?

John Yawose