The Ghana Association of Writers (GAW) has joined organisations publicly expressing their condolences on the death of the late President Jerry John Rawlings, first President of the Fourth Republic of Ghana, but has attracted condemnation for refusing to recognize his formation of a political party with which he transitioned from a military ruler to a democratic one.

This refusal to recognize Rawlings’ created National Democratic Congress (NDC), the biggest opposition party in the country currently, has earned GAW an unnecessary controversy that its leadership do not recognize the NDC for what it is, in accordance with the condemned statement issued by the President of the Republic, H.E Nana Akufo-Addo, who is the opponent of the NDC.

A statement signed by Mr. Francis Gbormittar, the President of GAW which was published by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) and other online news portals said among other things that, “On behalf of the National Executive Committee (NEC) and the entire membership of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW), the Association expresses its deepest condolences to H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the children and the entire Rawlings and Agbotui families, Ghana and Africa, for the loss of a great personality.”

While JJ Rawlings stood for Ghana and Africa, his biggest legacy is the sustainable democratic foundation he laid using the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as the vehicle at a time when people speculated that he will not relinquish power. Apart from the immediate family and the extended family, it is the NDC that is most grieved at his passing.

JJ Rawlings ushered in the Fourth Republic, the longest democratic dispensation in the history of the country, and his name is synonymous with the NDC, which he founded.

To issue a statement of condolences without mentioning the NDC betrays a particular mind-set and exposes an agenda that has the potential to portray this august Association as being partisan.

There are speculations among members of the Association which impugn the independence of the statement and suggest a probable financial benefit behind the crafting of the statement due to its similarity, in terms of tone and style, with that statement issued by the ruling government, and I shudder to think that the state-capture by the ruling party has transcended into a non-governmental institution that Ghanaians hitherto held as non-political.

GAW members come from different backgrounds with different political affiliations and a statement that seems insensitive to the broader membership is an anathema to what the Association stands for. More so, when the statement is issued “on behalf of the entire membership."

In contrast, the Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG) in a similar statement signed by its President, Kwabena Yeboah, stated: “On behalf of the Council of Patrons, Executive Council, and the entire membership of SWAG, the Association extends its deepest condolences to the bereaved family, the government, the people of Ghana and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of which the former President was its Founder.”

Unfortunately, Ghana has being polarised by politics, particularly between the NDC and the NPP. It is, therefore, appropriate and right to express our condolences first to Nana Akufo-Addo, who is the President of the land and represents the country. However, to be silent in extending condolences to the NDC family, especially when we are a few weeks to elections that is fraught with suspicions, distrust, superstition, intimidations, accusations and counter-accusations, it was expected that a respectable national body like GAW would provide the intellectual, unbiased and unifying voice to assuage the rising tensions.

Instead, the GAW statement appears to stoke the flames and feed into the narrative that every voice of the land must sing from the hymn book of the ruling party either voluntarily or otherwise, or be damned.

It is with this painful realisation that I think the National Executive Committee of GAW through the President of the Association, who signed the release, should render an apology to the membership of the Association for failing to issue a reconciliatory statement that calls for national unity instead of the one that shows a clear bias with a potential to create an unnecessary precedence.