RETIRED RAWLINGS LECTURES MILLS ON HOW TO GOVERN GHANA

THE STANDARD
NAIROBI, KENYA
April 3, 2009

By FRANCIS KOKUTSE,
NATION Correspondent

Thursday, April 2 2009
ACCRA, Thursday

Barely three months after his inauguration, Ghana’s President John Evans Atta Mills has come under serious criticism, not from the opposition parties, but his own former boss, Mr Jerry Rawlings.

Mr Rawlings accuses President Mills of being slow to deliver.

In addition, Mr Rawlings also believes that members of the former regime headed by Mr John Kufuor, had been so corrupt that, “it is taking so long to have them prosecuted”.

The position that Mr Rawlings has taken has given cause for his critics to say that he is simply meddling in the affairs of the young regime that has yet to establish its firm grip on power.

Some of members of the leading opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) claim that they have been justified in their campaign suggestion that a vote for President Mills was the return of Mr Rawlings.

One President

Speaking to a the executives and leading journalists who paid a courtesy call on him last month, President Mills came out strongly that, “there is only one President in the country, and his belief in the rule of law should not be mistaken for cowardice”.

This statement was not directed at any particular person at the time, but social commentators now say, “President Mills directed it to Rawlings”.

For the opposition party, it comes to prove one thing; the bad blood that existed between Mr Rawlings and Mr Kufuor, during the eight years of his regime was a result of he (Kufuor) not allowing Mr Rawlings to be a back-seat driver that he has become now.

Others think differently. Mr Rawlings is a product of a revolution that he unleashed on Ghana between June 1979 and September of the same year, and later from December 31 till January 1991 when he had to convert from a military head of state to a constitutional president.

“The man has obviously not weaned himself of the revolutionary ways of doing things. Under a constitution, you cannot just get up and do things,” said Mr Martin Acquah, an NPP activist in Accra.

Soon after President Mills was sworn in, Mr Rawlings publicly called on him to change some of the political appointees and some heads of state organisations because these people were corrupt.

Unfortunately, President Mills could not just appoint people to offices without consulting with the Council of State, which was then not in place. Thus, Mr Rawlings was asking the President, who is a law professor of many years standing, to work outside the constitution.

Not satisfied, on March 30, Mr Rawlings carried his crusade to a meeting of the national executive committee of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). His aide, Kofi Adams said in a statement after the meeting that, Mr Rawlings said, “usurpers” with parochial interest had hijacked the Mills administration “hell bent on entrenching their positions”.

Mr Rawlings said some of these “usurpers, who had been hiding in rat holes” during the heady days of the electoral campaign, had today surfaced to make themselves decision makers.

He said, the “sins” of the previous administration would not necessarily destroy society. What would destroy society, he intimated, was the inability of the NDC to stem the wave of corruption it inherited by not taking drastic actions.

“The NDC’s victory was borne out of the corruption of the NPP, but when the new government fails to take action to arrest the situation, then society crumbles and corruption becomes the order of the day,” he added.
Mr Rawlings said he was particularly worried that erroneous impressions were being created that he had his men within the current ministerial structure, and hence had no reason to complain. “Stories have been told about how my wife also has about six cronies with major appointments. Let me make it clear to you that we were not consulted on majority of these appointments. And even in situations where there have been any consultations at all, no effort has been made to give us feedback if counter opinion has prevailed,” he stated.

Was not happy

Reaction to Mr Rawlings has been swift. A constituency chairman of the NPP, Mr Peter Okyere, called on President Mills and the national security apparatus to monitor closely the movements and actions of Mr Rawlings to avoid a repetition of the 1981 coup he led against the then President Hilla Limann.

Soon after the Armed Force Revolutionary Council (AFRC) of which Mr Rawlings was the chairman handed over to President Limann in 1979, it became clear that Mr Rawlings was not happy with every move that President Limann took.

Things got to a head when national security operatives were made to monitor Rawlings 24 hours, but this did not stop him from staging a coup to oust President Limann on December 31, 1981.

Memories of this make some political analysts cautious of whatever Mr Rawlings says today.

Ghanaians are keenly watching Mr Rawlings to see what his outbursts would lead to.