The NDC without Rawlings

You may hate or dislike him, but you cannot do without him. At age 32 he held Ghana hostage and today a party called NDC was borne out of that. He may have done that for good or bad intentions but only God knows. For some of us, it was for a good intention, only lives should not have been lost.

The university students also supported him massively. He is the man Jerry John Rawlings. To say that what the NDC was/is doing in terms of corruption is a thousand times more than what the generals did before they were executed in 1979 is an admission of regret.

Lessons are learnt from the Coup d’etat. The June 4th Revolution was an uprising in 1979 that arose out of a combination of corruption, bad governance, frustration among the general public, and lack of discipline and frustrations within the Ghanaian army.

Former President Rawlings won the two elections without struggles. He never wasted money on campaigns. He is naturally liked by almost everyone. He is a crowd puller because of his charisma. He was able to market Ghana worldwide. He has a strong, lovely, supportive, and ambitious wife, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings. They are not perfect people anyway.

In his time of reign, there was discipline among his appointees. You would not find young appointees talking back at the elderly people. Money was not allocated for sanitation. Rawlings and the wife stood for neatness and every citizen knew how to keep their surroundings clean. Nana Konadu had the women of Ghana on her side.

The crowd we see today for the new NDC was already created by the man, J. J. Rawlings and the wife. Realizing that the party had deviated from its core values for which some generals lost their lives, former president Rawlings bypass the party’s laid down structures and handpicked his Vice president, Attah Mills to become the presidential candidate without primaries. Rawlings trusted Attah Mills because he knew Attah Mills was not criminally minded and would not in any way wrongly take a pesewa of Ghana’s money.

He wanted to use his 19 years’ experience to help Attah Mills to clean the party so its core values could be maintained. Attah Mills later became president alright but distant himself from Rawlings which made it impossible for Rawlings's dream to be realized.

Why the new NDC without Rawlings and what is his offense? Rawlings was on platforms castigating former president J. A. Kuffuor. Attah Mills and John Mahama together with their supporters were praising and clapping hands for the former president Rawlings. They did not see anything wrong with that action. When Attah Mills and Mahama also became presidents, similar castigations were directed to them.

These times round they saw Rawlings’ actions towards them to be wrong and therefore called him a traitor. Boys were trained to talk back at their founder. Is Rawlings not a man of integrity? The relationship between the founder and the members became tenser when Nana Konadu contested the sitting president. Humiliation against the Rawlings family continues at the congress in Sunyani. Konadu’s action was rather a divine intervention for the party and for the then-president but selfish ambition and greed had crowded their minds. And was not Rawlings truthful to BBC when he was interviewed on the day former president Attah Mills die?

He still received some insults from the party members after the interview. One said, ‘Rawlings is a recalcitrant and irresponsible man.’

What many do not know is, we do not fight against our source of power no matter how hurtful we feel. We use wisdom.

Since Attah Mills' death, the new NDC without Rawlings keeps struggling without success. They thought and bragged to win the 2016 election without Rawlings but the unimaginable had happened to them. Great national humiliation in the history of Ghana had happened. Many thought they would do the needful to their founder, but they rather chose the opposite. Your founder is a happy person in opposition today. Do not forget he used his own blood to endorse the party’s constitution.

There can be no Rawlings without the right NDC. Desperation, lies, propaganda, and money cannot achieve anything good. It will only lead you to a mess.

What about the running mate? She was with the founder for blessings. Does her conscience not speak to her about what she and Ahwoi write about the founder? Or you are still thinking that Ghanaians have short memories. We all know that PhD or professorship does not necessarily guarantee common sense. They have even forgotten that the founder is from the world bank of the party and they vote for NDC because of Rawlings.

Maybe by now, the Voltarians do not know what is going on against the founder of the party. Some have started disabusing their minds of the Voltarians against the founder and the wife. Bear in mind that the truth is always one. God sees the truth but waits. What has happened to the Ewes in the executive positions of the party? And what did De Sousa say when she lost her position? When you do the right things, the right things happen to you.

Why do you think others in the region are making every effort to make the Volta Region an independent state? Desperation, because the NDC has taken the people of the region for granted.

Winning an election is one thing. Governance is another. The new NDC has been tried but failed woefully. If governance is all about taking a loan to build overpriced infrastructures, then everyone can be a president of a country.

Taking responsibility for millions of people in a country is a serious business. It is not about how much money one has. Money does not rule but knowledge does. Nkrumah never had money. God is always watching our motives.

God bless J.J. Rawlings and God bless Ghana.