Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings has wings but can’t fly

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Folks, hardly has the appeal by former President Rawlings sunk than his wife has sprung up to create the impression that she still doesn't understand or know what is at stake. Speaking at the 8th national delegates’ congress of the ruling party, Rawlings had urged his wife to consider returning to the NDC fold: “Let us invite our mother Nana Konadu to come back home… I hope she can hear us, I hope she can see us,” he had said.

But Nana Konadu has shot down everything. She is reported as stressing that she won’t ever return to the NDC and that she has turned down the invitation. According to her, the main reasons why she walked out of the NDC to be an integral part of the National Democratic Party (NDP) still remain.

Here is a major part of her reaction: “I worked to build [NDC]," she pointed out. “But even when you build a house, you build the house because you want to live in it...and you find that robbers have taken over your house and the house has been desecrated in some way and you have the chance to move to a smaller house somewhere, if you are not staying there, then that's your problem.” (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomeP…/NewsArchive/artikel.php…)

MY COMMENTS

I want to isolate some salient aspects of her reaction for analysis:

1. "However, the leader of the 31st December Women’s Movement has turned down the invitation, saying the main reasons why she walked out of the NDC to be an integral part of the National Democratic Party (NDP) still remain."

Turned down the invitation? Which invitation? Has anybody in the NDC even considered inviting her back into the party? None!! So, if she is saying that she has "turned down the invitation", doesn't she intend to mislead people?

2. “I worked to build [NDC]," she pointed out. “But even when you build a house, you build the house because you want to live in it...and you find that robbers have taken over your house and the house has been desecrated in some way and you have the chance to move to a smaller house somewhere, if you are not staying there, then that's your problem.”

Building the NDC as a house to occupy? To lead to the elections and become Ghana's President at all costs? Here lies her main problem. Did she "build" the NDC alone to want to live in it and use it for any purpose that she wills and wishes?

Folks, do you see the rabid mentality of this woman? I for one won't support anybody insisting that everything be done to bring her back into the party. If she is content with living in a boys' quarters instead of the main house, so be it.

The problem is that with this overweening mentality and dangerous political posture, she will return to the party with more venom than she has spat so far. Let nobody pay heed to her tantrums. As she grows old, she will come to realize her folly at the end of the journey to nowhere. A good riddance she is!!

Nana Konadu over-used her “First Lady” status to grow wings. That is the issue I take with this status, especially when it is not defined, recognized, or supported by our Constitution but is given so much elbow room just because the woman at the centre of it is the President’s wife. I wish that something would be inserted in the Constitution to restrain and constrain such a “wife” from doing things to create problems of the sort emanating from Nana Konadu’s quarters. That is not to say that such a wife should be denied her freedom of participation in partisan politics. The law framers should know better how to manage the situation.

She is pushing the button and will regret the nasty consequences. After exploiting the 31st December Women’s Movement to build her own political stature and after using its aegis to acquire property, let somebody ask her what has become of that Movement today? Where is it? Strangled by her over-ambition, especially after the main pillars of the Movement broke ranks with her.

The fact that Rawlings would even make the appeal the way he did it entails a lot. If his wife indeed needed the NDC to survive politically, why won’t the Rawlingses sort things out on the quiet? Not so for the Rawlingses who have come to realize that splitting their family into political camps might help sustain them.

That is why Nana Konadu is leaning toward the NPP while Rawlings remains stuck to the NDC. Was Nana Konadu not saying the other day that she had decided not to contest Election 2016 but to support Akufo-Addo? The anticipation is that whether it is the NDC that is power or the NPP, the Rawlingses can still keep their heads above water.

That is the kind of "lorgorligi" politics that the Rawlingses do to focus attention on themselves. Can they not ever bring themselves to the point where they will see themselves in the mirror and know that once their era is gone, it is gone for good? Do they not even know anything about empires rising and falling and never coming back to life?

Resolution: She should be ignored. From what is happening, I suspect strongly that she wants to pull strings and set conditions for the NDC. Better to ignore her and move on. Those behind her will come to realize their childishness as the pond dries up around them. Pathetic souls!!

I shall return…

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