“Welcome my son, you promised to come back. You have come welcome, come sit by me.”

The Voice says with these words spoken in clear distinct and immaculate Asante, the Asantehemaa, Nana Afua Serwaa Kobi Ampem, welcomed ex-president J.J. Rawlings to her palace at Manhyia on Friday August 24.

According to the paper, in the morning when the ex-president’s entourage surprised the Kumasi Metropolis, after meeting with the Ashanti regional executives of the NDC, the team went straight to the Asantehema’s palace to, as custom demands, greet her.

She pulled the former President from the seat offered him and asked him to sit by her. Innocent passers-by who were privileged to sight the ex-president sent word round that the man was around and the whole precincts of the Asantehemaa’s palace became a beehive of activity.

People run helter-skelter to send the news that Rawlings was in town. When the crowd started thickening, the ex-president and his entourage drove to the Manhyia Palace and held close door meeting with the Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the Asantehene.

At the meeting, that observers believe were frank exchange of views, the ex-president drove off evading the media men who had picked his scent and were waiting for an interview, says the Voice.