By Korku Devitor
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Matthew 23:37
It is becoming increasingly clear that, supporters of President Mills’ clannish regime cannot get any substantial grounds on which to stand to bash former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings who has been campaigning to unseat the president as leader of the ruling National Democratic Congress(NDC), and ultimately become the president of Ghana.
All they have resorted to is to play the moral and sympathy card. They have been stating that it was morally wrong for someone to contest a sitting president who is from his/her own party. “Oh! President Mills delivered Central and Western regions which had been difficult for NDC, so why change him, seeing that the two regions could punish us for doing that?”-Fifi Kwetey.
But the ugliest of all the strategies being employed by surrogates of the drowning Mills to help him hang on to power is to delude Ghanaians with the allegation of a supposed DYNASTY the founder of their party and his wife would like to establish.
Editor of the Daily Dispatch, Ben Ephson in his quest to gain what he cliams Kwaku Barko allegedly denied him during the Kufuor era, has become the most ‘potent’ vehicle by which this Ato-Ahwoi-hatched strategy is being spewed out to unsuspecting party faithfuls and Ghanaians.
From the beginning of the Mills’ administration, and the ONSET of the Ahwoi brewed troubles in the NDC party and government, Ben Ephson has been the willing vehicle used to carry out the propaganda aspect of this crafty enterprise.
It would be recalled that a memo submitted to the president by P.V Obeng, who had just completed his assignment as chairman of the transitional team of the NDC, was leaked to Ben Ephson by someone very close to Mills.
In the memo, P.V Obeng was alleged to have recommended to President Mills strategies regarding how the NDC media should be strengthened in order to create the needed space for the government in the media.
Whatever was wrong about these suggestions that warranted the leaking to Ephson remains unclear, but Ben Ephson published the memo to portray P.V Obeng as if he was against other media, that were not in support of the NDC.
Lest we forget, Ato Ahwoi is on record as having started publishing responses to Spio Garbrah in Ben Ephson’s Daily Dispatch, soon after Spio had published some thoughts about the then new government in the Daily Graphic.
It was therefore inferred that, then the leaking of documents from the castle to Ephson could be traced to “Uncle Ato”.
It has been confirmed by many of the reporters at the Labone base of the Daily Dispatch and the other Labone newspapers that Ato Ahwoi has been visiting them regularly to plan and plant stories.
Evidence abounds that Ben Ephson only does most of his stories to please his new-found political pay masters that cannot be published elsewhere. Just take a look at his headlines for any one week, and you’ll see the drift. This therefore points the direction from which this DYNASTY allegation is coming.
It is from that same man to whom Rawlings gave huge political clout by making him the longest serving energy minister in Ghana . Today, Ato Ahwoi has become a rabid dog biting his benefactor.
To suggest that Rawlings would like to establish a dynasty, one must look at his history. For the 19 years that he ruled Ghana , was there a single act by Rawlings to suggest that he was interested in foisting a DYNASTY on the people of Ghana ?
One, who according to E.T. Mensah would not even agree for the Rawlings Park to bear his name, nor would he reward himself with national honours, but would rather reward many patriots, friends and foes alike for their services to mother Ghana.
It would be recalled that against popular opinion within NDC and Nkrumahist circles, Okyeame, Baafuor Akoto was rewarded with national honours under the Rawlings regime, and for what? I can’t tell.
“As the media has been explaining, it is unlikely that the idea of Ghanaian presidency being one of husband go-wife come will go down well,” was Ben Ephson’s assertion in the Daily Dispatch of Thursday May 12, 2011.
Now taking their argument at face value makes a lot of sense and must be applauded. But wait a minute; is this position a sincere one, being postulated by those Mills’ supporters?
It is unlikely, because, whereas, Rawlings was working hard to establish a governance system that was national in character, devoid of any tribal inclinations or family hegemony, some of his surrogates and so-called fiends, (sorry, friends) were abusing the trust he so much reposed in them, by laying the foundation on which to forge tribal cliques and dynastic hegemonies of treachery, using their relatives and tribesmen to accomplish this fiendish enterprise.
It is abundantly clear that this allegation that Jerry Rawlings and his wife are trying to build a DYNASTY hence Nana Konadu’s attempt to become president of Ghana is not only a FALSE on, but also a wicked concoction of those who are benefitting from the loose confederacy kind of leadership Mills offers to further their own nests.
In fact the allegation flies in the face of available evidence, because there was, and has never been any such traits in the system Rawlings established and supervised for 19 solid years. Not even when Obed Asamoah was hell bent on having an Ewe as running mate to Mills in 2000, something that could be a justification for this kind of assertion, albeit remote, did Rawlings consent.
Who were his closest associates from the PNDC and NDC 1 days? Fantis, northerners, Asantis, Gas, Bonos, Ewes and in fact people from all walks of Ghana . That was, and still is the reason the NDC continues to show at polls that its support base is national in nature.
In fact, in the face of available evidence this allegation is worse than a lame one. It has no legs to stand on, at all,neither does it have any adhesives with which it can stick on the Rawlingses.
One of those who should have known better is Haruna Atta, editor of the (Accra) Daily Mail and recently appointed member of the management board of the Ghana News Agency.
Alhaji Atta is a brother –in-law of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, married to the former First Lady’s sister, Abena Konadu Agyeman.
He got appointed as Managing Director of the Ghana Film Industry Corporation (GFIC), under the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) regime of Jerry Rawlings, but got dismissed for alleged incompetence. In a dynasty, such a close family member is either transferred to a more powerful position or rewarded with bigger titles, while the allegation is watered down. But Rawlings dismissed him, period.
Juxtapose that scenario with the following story from the britishroyals.info
“Some good and bad news for the Duke of York. He has been appointed as Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) by the Queen for his services to the crown. The British Monarchy website published this new appointment.
Ironically, on the same day, his judgment has again been called into question after he was pictured with a convicted child-sex offender. Prince Andrew is said to have spent four days at the Manhattan home of disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. He was photographed strolling through Central Park with the 58-year-old financier, who is on the U.S. sex offenders’ register after he admitted soliciting teenage girls into prostitution.”
For your information, Prince Andrew cannot and has not been de-knighted (if there is a term like that) or removed as Prince of York, because he is a royal of the British monarch (dynasty).
Look at the regimes of Sadam Hussein, Muamar Qathafi and Fidel Castro of Cuba , and you find such traits of leaders who wanted to impose their families on their people.
John Mahama and Kwesi Pratt do not find anything wrong with Raul Castro succeeding Fidel as leader of Cuba, but have a problem when Nana Konadu wants to stand for the leadership of NDC and possibly lead the party in the 2012 elections.
Pratt and Mahama should tell us, how many people Fidel consulted before deciding on the choice of Raul as his successor.
Should I mention Rawlings’s nephew who was executed for wrong doing in the early days of the PNDC, or Maj. Courage Quarshigah who was tried and jailed for attempting to eliminate the head of state?
Rawlings replaced his clan man and long time security adviser, Kodjo Tsikata with Totobi Quakyi as national security minister, when things got heady between Rawlings and Tsikata.
Don’t forget that Rawlings learnt through the times, (with Courage Quarshigah’s treasonable act of 1990) not to rely too much on tribesmen.
In the life of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the hub of every Ghanaian government’s intelligence gathering, Peter Tinga Nabon Nanfuri had been the longest serving director. He is a Dagao (Dagati) from the Upper West Region. When he was moved to the police service as IGP, Yaw Donkor, a native of Krachi in Volta north replaced him.
At the Blue Gate(National Security Secretariat), Kofi Bentum Quantson was the longest serving coordinator, assisted by Bafuor Asase Gyima, and Kwasivi Degbor during the Rawlings regime. Are these his tribesmen or relatives? In a DYNASTY, your security is in the hands of your close relatives who are bound by the common blood links to protect you and the DYNASTY.
But the watch-words for Jerry Rawlings were truth, competence and trust. For him, his relatives and tribesmen were trust and truth, not necessarily those from his mother’s womb and his hometown.
Otherwise, think about this. How many Rawlinges or Agbotuis became as powerful in Ghana as the Ahwois during and after the Rawlings regime? How many of them do we have in the current regime?
In psychology, the term PROJECTION or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person unconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, such as to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others have those feelings. (Wikipedia).
This is what the campaign team of President Mills/ Ato Ahwoi and their apologists are doing: Dynasty is at the heart of the current NDC government. In fact, it was Rawlings’ trust for some people which has led to this situation.
Just a cursory look through the lists of Mills’ appointees reveals an interesting picture of tendencies that suggest a picture of DYNASTY.
In the economic advisory committee of Atta Mills is his own brother, Cadman Mills, an experienced economist. Tell me he is there for his competence, and I cannot agree with you more.
But the question is, if Konadu, by attempting to become president in Ghana could be described as DYNASTY tendencies, then what of a president who has his brother in his economic management team?
Or if that of Cadman can be based on competence, has Nana Konadu proven to be less competent? Has she not proven to be the most effective First Lady of all times in Ghana?
Now these petty and mean minds use the catch phrase, “Husband go-Wife come” the grammar of it, I cannot determine, because I don’t have that competence, but if it is a crime for a wife or child to occupy a similar position the spouse or parent used to occupy, then what is Betty Mould Iddrisu doing in the Atta Mills government.
Is it not because, “My husband is one of those noble men who founded the NDC”?, Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu was a PNDC member, a Minister of Defence and became the presidential adviser on governmental affairs after the exit of P.V Obeng, the unofficial prime minister under Rawlings.
Alhaji Iddrisu contributed in no small way to the process of rebuilding Ghana, and I think his wife and brothers-in-law deserve to work in any NDC government if they believe in the party’s ideology and the vision of the founding fathers.
If nobody can deny Betty Mould Iddrisu and her bothers this right, who is the holier than the pope to describe Mrs. Rawlings’s political struggle a “Husband-go, Wife-come”?
A husband already went for a wife to come in the NDC, by virtue of Betty Mould Iddrisu. An elder brother rules and younger brother comes in Atta Mills and his brother Cadman.
Less I forget, Cadman never responded to the publication that he and Kofi Annan as well as some other “prominent” Ghanaians had been appointed by Kosmos to lobby President Mills in the Kosmos share/ExXonMobil issue. Today, Kosmos has been allowed to sell their shares in the Jubilee oil fields on the American Stock Excahnge.
You see what brother-power can do? If ever there was another Rawlings or Agbotui in Rawlingses economic management team, hell would have broken loose here in this country.
I remember vividly the story of Michael Soussudis who risked his life for the country during the PNDC regime to help the country infiltrate the US Central Intelligence Agency files on Ghana. The rest is history now.
Have you seen the NDC I or II regimes doing him any favours? Simple minds who lack any knowledge of the enormity of what the CIA was doing to the country through our own compatriots argued that how could one person be exchanged for about seven Ghanaians?
But the strongest DYNASTY in the NDC government currently is the Ahwoi hegemony. Kwamena and Ato were appointed Secretaries of State under Rawlings. They stayed on and benefitted politically, economically and even socially.
Who remembers CASPRO, the cocoa purchasing company that the Ahwois formed to purchase cocoa for the Cocoa Board (COCOBOD)?
At the time these two gentlemen were ministers their third brother, Kwesi was Chief Executive of Ghana Export Promotions Centre (GEPC) and the Ghana Investment Promotions Centre (GIPC). He went on, and on until the party left power. As for the economic and social gains that went with these positions, only time will tell.
Currently, he is the Minister of Agriculture, and is allegedly being groomed to either take over from Mills as president or from John Mahama as Vice.
Kwesi Ahwoi’s case is a classical case of one benefitting from a family DYNASTY. Tell me he is competent and I will tell you to tell that to the marines. What is good for the goose is equally good for the gander.
In fact, Kwesi Ahwoi , the Minister for Agriculture has become so powerful that even when President Mills was going to turn on the valves on FPSO Kwame Nkrumah to signify the start of Ghana’s oil production in December 2010, he was the one who accompanied the president, while the energy minister , Joe Oteng Agyei was left idle at the durbar grounds at the Takoradi Air Force base.
It tells you how brother power works in the Mills-led Ato Ahwoi government
And be it known to all ye NDC faithful, that if there is any sign of DYNASTY in the NDC today, you find it in the castle, the GNPC and all the places these Ahwoi’s operate. In fact Ato Ahwoi has become the oil Czar of Ghana
There are ministers and former ministers whose relatives are in positions of “special assistants” (I used invented commas because it is unofficial), and others who have positions in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as in some state enterprises. (Names are being withheld for now since a lot of those people have not commented on the NDC leadership brouhaha)
All these are not considered DYNASTIES, but as soon as Mrs Rawlings declared she wanted to become presidential candidate, this ‘crippled’ argument of DYNASTY was cooked up to court public disaffection for the Rawlingses.
Please, after working so hard, together with other NDC stalwarts to ensure victory for the party in 2008, and after singlehandedly ensuring that Mills did not just get onto the NDC ship in 1996, but also made him presidential candidate three times leading to his current privileged position, what did Rawlings demand for his family?
All he fought for were appointments for the likes of Betty Mould Iddrissu, E.T. Mensah and the rest who today are joining the fray of backstabbers to denigrate the legacy of the man who sacrificed for them to be where they all are today.
Is it because Rawlings’ children are not qualified to hold deputy ministerial positions, or at least Special Assistant positions that their father did not fight for them to be part of the government? The last time I checked, at least Ezanetor, had completed her post-graduate studies in the field of medicine. But there are less qualified doctors in the government.
Yaa Asantewa had completed the Ghana Law School at Makola, but there are deputy ministers currently struggling to get qualifications in law. (This is not to say the Rawlingses want appointments in the Mills government for their children. In fact, I don’t think this has even crossed their mind. They won’t even accept such a cheap and propagandist gesture.)
Spurred on by their selfless devotion to seeking the good of humanity, they rather fought for others to get into positions. People they thought could do better than some of the initial appointees. Today, some of those people have shown their true colours. They gravitate towards power, not loyalty to principles.
Furthermore, if Rawlings had intended to establish a DYNASTY in Ghana, evidence would have been there throughout his 19-year rule for all to see. Or at least, when the party returned to power he would have foisted his own family members on the government, but he did none of these.
Moreover, if the presence of the relatives of other NDC leaders (past and present) in the government is not considered an intension to impose relatives on the party, nation or government, how then can we describe the desire of just one member of the party founder’s family to become president a move to establish a DYNASTY?
In democracies around the world, India, Britain, South Africa, France, Germany and the USA among others, there are families that are indispensable to political traditions, but nobody accuses these families of practicing a DYNASTY.
Before one is tempted by the moral arguments being postulated, one needs to ask the simple question, which is, What has Rawlings been fighting for?
Is it his own good and that of his family, or the general wellbeing of Ghanaians?
President Mills must be guided by the Akan proverb that translates that “when your friend’s beard is on fire, deep yours into water.”
These same people benefitting from his weak leadership today are only fair weather friends. In fact, they will not only stab him in the back after he leaves power, they will even drive the nail into his coffin to burry him.
To be continued.
PS:Before Korku Anyidoho misleads people into believing in his act of heroism, he must be told that Jerry Rawlings left a fledging military career in order to initiate a process that has today given his (Korku Anyidoho) likes some political clout.
Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings was a senior Manager at UAC when the revolution began. Dr. Ayirebi Acquah left his medical practice in East Africa to come home and join the transformation process.
He is therefore not the first person to have left a banking job to contribute to the NDC campaign for power in 2008.
Korku Devitor is a public-interest journalist based in Accra, Ghana.
You may communicate with him on devitor68@gmail.com
