Former president Jerry John Rawlings has for the first time given a hint regarding the cause of his strained relationship with the late president John Atta Mills.

At a lecture organized by the Centre for Freedom and Accuracy (CFA), at which he was the special guest of honour, Mr. Rawlings, unwittingly gave away the motive for his extreme abhorrence of his former protégé and former president, Mills, when he recounted:

“And I do recall very well that in one of his (Mills) major press conferences, President Mills said, and I recall this very well: ‘I will not inherit anybody else's enemies…’

“It is there in the records go listen to it,” Mr. Rawlings told a large and ecstatic audience at the conference hall of the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel in Accra last week.

Betraying the pain he underwent due to the purported statement by the late president, Rawlings, the man who ruled Ghana the longest told his sometimes bemused listeners:

“I don't think I went out of my way to create enemies. For the charges that I was making against the NPP, I disagreed with President Mills on the approach because I felt some of the investigations were done in a manner that suppressed indicting evidence.”

With his ‘political soul mate’ and wife of nearly thirty-five years, Nana Konadu by his side and nodding in agreement, the former Air Force pilot turned Head of State, then proceeded to defend his recent newfound cordiality with the opposition New Patriotic Party.

“…when the presidential candidate of the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo came to my office, some of our people just could not take it... that how I could have allowed this…..,” he asked rhetorically.

Explaining further, Rawlings said, “Our late President [Mills] was known as the Asomdwehene. And I guess part of that credential came from the fact that he treated the opposition in a very civilized manner so he was Asomdwee. And if today it is the most desirable way to ensure a peaceful co-existence, why should I continue to remain in a place to be regarded as the trouble maker...the war monger..?

Continuing, Mr. Rawlings said of the late President, “His relationship with President Kufuor, with Nana Akufo-Addo, school friend, this and that and I was left out there. And yet, the very reason why I was war-mongering on the killings and corruption Asomdweehene didn't seem to be taking them up,” Mr. Rawlings stated sarcastically.

He accused his ruling National Democratic Congress government of failing to right the wrongs under the Kufuor administration, hence its phobia of going into opposition.