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Thank You Mr Rawlings

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 Source: Owusu-Ansah, Kofi

Not quite long ago I wrote an open letter to you on some issues I felt with your position as our only surviving former president and as the father of the biggest opposition party you needed to address. I like your attitude to that letter because as an elderly statesman, you chose quietness as your response even though there were as many as 247 respondents who commented on the open letter. There were those who wished I never existed for darling to write at all.

I am very much encouraged by your Christmas message to the nation recently in which you answered almost all the questions I posed to you in the Open Letter. You touched on nepotism, tribalism, intolerance and many others I stated as the things dragging our fragile democracy down the drain. I know you meant all that you said and those words coming from a charismatic person like you,people are going to take notice. What those who insulted me did not understand is the fact that at the end of the day we have one and only Ghana. We can't wish that country away and take other nations as our country. There is something magnetic about our country that wherever you are you have this itching to go back to it and if that were the case,then it behooves on each one of us to do our bit so that that country called Ghana can survive and develop.


Politically,you and I have divergent views on issues just because you belong to a different political party and I belong to a different one but we all want a developed Ghana. Mr Former President,we need you to offer leadership in so many areas in our nations development. You don't have to be the President to do that. Do you remember what you said when you failed to vote at your just concluded NDC party congress? You said and I quote " I did not vote because as the father of the party,I loved all the four candidates. I wish it were possible to elect all of them"(Unquote) That is another leadership quality which we need in our country. How we wish Ghana could be like the UK or the US where the party in power seeks ideas from the opposition on national issues all with the view of building their nations.


Why can't we do that in Ghana? After all these political parties are just entities that help us to gain power and put into practice what programmes we have for our beloved Ghana so if in reality we have the interests our nation at heart, if we care for the deprived,the disadvantaged,the abused,neglected and rejected, the homeless and all those treated as second hand citizens in their own homeland, we can put NPP, NDC, PNC, CPP etc. aside and put human face to these problems and tackle them as they confront our nation.

I wish you a happy new year and will always hold you to the very words you used in your Christmas Message to us, Ghanaians because I believe very deep in my heart that you meant everything that you said.


Good Day my former president.



Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.


Columnist: Owusu-Ansah, Kofi