The president actually conceded that issues of intra-party discontent came up during their campaign and that such issues will not be swept under the carpet. The question is: did it have to take the leader of a party and a man that has the entire state intelligence machinery at his disposal to have known this?
This infinitesimal NDC delegate, which is largely appointees of Atta-Mills, went to sunyani and simply voted to protect their 'nokfioo' positions. That is what the 97% vote for the president is all about.

Now, NDC won the 2008 elections with a total vote of a little over 4-million people. So let’s say if their core party voters stand at 3.5-million, how can anybody convince me that this constricted number of greedy bastards currently eclipsing Atta-Mills that skillfully orchestrated this victory at the congress is doing the party any good?

The fact must not be lost on these people that the NPP which had almost the same number of votes as the NDC in the 2008 elections, had 120,000 grass-root members of the party electing its flag-bearer for 2012.As a matter of fact, Alan Kyeremanten who came second in that contest actually garnered over 20,000 votes.

Effectively,NPP already has 120,000 votes in the bag as compared to less than 4,000 of the NDC.Therefore, those who will try and compare NDC’s endorsement of Atta-Mills’ to that of Nana Addo by the NPP, in the coming days, must be mindful of the bare facts on the ground.

Now, Nana Konadu enumerated the short-comings of Atta-Mills and tried to effect a change from within so that things could be straightened up for peace and harmony to prevail in the NDC.But as a typical African leader, Atta-Mills has surrounded himself with praise-singing thieves that go all out to intimidate, insult and even kill people who dare to criticize him.

Hooting at your own founder’s wife as she delivered a campaign speech in a democratic intra-party contest while the ‘asomdwee hene’ sat there and gloat?
James Agyenim-Boateng,in a post congress interview with Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah on Multi-TV, actually described Nana Konadu’s decision to contest the party’s flagbearership as being borne out of pure “vengeance and vindictiveness”. These are the mouth-pieces of Atta-Mills who goes preaching Christ and pretended to be comfortable with the woman’s challenge.

Though she did not win, I still see Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings as a winner in the sense that her challenge actually forced the president to hastily go out there and equitably stuff the pockets of hitherto neglected and hungrily angry NDC foot-soldiers, with a quantum sum of ?900-billion.
A party that prides itself in being social democratic, ideologically, and therefore seeks to enhance the well-being of the down-trodden, actually dealt a deadly blow to business entrepreneurs in the sunyani municipality before and during the congress. People were ordered to close down their businesses just to pave way for money-soaked “GAME” parasites, to freely and leisurely, walk the streets of sunyani and engage in ‘money-swine-swager’ with some of those numerous prostitutes that flocked the vicinity.

Again, all second cycle institutions in and around the municipality were ordered to close down to pay way for the comfort of NDC delegates. And here too, parents who had made provisions, in accordance with their poverty stricken ‘bitter Ghana’ pockets, for their wards to be in school after a mid-term break, were made to suffer additional burden of having to put up with these wards at home.
Teachers of these schools stayed at home but will still get paid for no work done on those days. All other non-teaching staff of these schools will also be paid for no work done. But you see, all these come at a cost to both the parents and the ordinary tax-weary Ghanaian.

Other huge sums of state funds were also sunk into the general preparations towards the congress. Taking about sudden emergence of coal-tar-paved foot-paths, ‘roofing’ of the entire coronation park, illegal connection of electricity by the VRA et all.

All this was done with state money and the only explanation the NDC could give to the Ghanaian tax-payer, according to Solomon Nkansah who is the deputy national propaganda secrtary, was that all political parties are public institutions. Hence, state funds can be legitimately expended on them in pursuance of selecting a potential president (dwen ho biem, Hot-FM, 6/7/11).
However, we were all in this country when just a couple of months ago, the NPP was forced by this very same state to cough out tens of billions of cedis for the usage of the ‘Baba Yara’ sports stadium to hold its national delegates’ congress where the flag-bearer, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo was elected.
Now, when I first had the opportunity to travel abroad, my destination was the Schephol air-port in Amsterdam en-rout to Geneva (Switzerland), aboard a KLM flight. We had to wait for some hours to catch a connecting flight to Geneva airport.

When our plane was finally ready to take-off, there was so much snow blizzards in Amsterdam and this resulted in a further delay. We were finally given the green-light to take-off and we finally touched down at Geneva airport at around 10 am.

Now, as we were going through immigration for entry clearance, I was asked to wait aside. I guess it was because all passengers onboard the flight were either top officials or business moguls from across the globe and those airport officials were therefore wondering how I very young and lanky bloke(I look very much different now) would be on a flight from Accra to Geneva in January when it was winter in Europe.

And to satisfy their curiosity, I was asked to call my cousin, who was working with the United Nations, to personally come to the airport to pick me up. I initially thought that was not necessary because I had her address and that I could easily find my way home if I was cleared, but they insisted and I had no choice but to call my cousin to drive to the airport.

Just within 5-minutes of placing the call, my cousin was there and I was immediately cleared. And you know what: when I checked my passport, I realized that the stamp clearing me for entry was given at the very moment I handed my passport to them and I guess they simply wanted to ensure my safety.
The reason for this exposé on my journey to Switzerland is that, it was my very first travel outside the shores of Africa which was a great eye-opener and I have never ceased being grateful to my cousin who made that possible.
Now likening this experience with that of Atta-Mills and his ascendency to the presidency, I do not think he has been that appreciative of the role the Rawlingses have played in his life.

This is a person who claims to be an Nkrumaist but had absolutely no track record of political activism and was sitting his somewhere in the confines of Legon campus, was plugged from there and put on the bride-groom horse to become the husband of the beautiful and sexy-looking NDC at a wedding ceremony in Swedru.
The long anticipated political-wedlock between the Rawlingses and Atta-Mills was elegantly consummated at this famous “Swedru-declaration”. I was not in the country when that famous event took place, but due to the heat it generated both within and outside the NDC, it still brings back lots of heat on our political landscape since this ‘Swedru-declaration’ has become part of our nation’s political lexicon.

That Swedru-declaration was a bold and potentially explosive decision taken by Rawlings which could have easily obliterated the NDC as an institution. But Rawlings stood firm in the face of all critisms and supported Atta-Mills, through thick and thin, till he (Atta-Mills) became the president on 7th January, 2009.

Like I said earlier, I was very glad to have had the chance to first travel outside the shores of Africa, through the benevolence of my sweet cousin and I have never relented in my appreciation for that favour.
But the point is; travelling outside the shores of Ghana and sitting in a plane for the very first time is a very pleasant experience but this does not come anywhere close to being given the chance and assistance to ascend to the office of a president which is the highest position anyone could ever aspire to. And it is for this reason that I believe Atta-Mills has not been grateful enough as regards the noble role the Rawlingses have played in his life. I guess he is putting up this attitude towards the Rawlingses just to ‘prove’ to ‘skeptics’ that he is “his own man”.

But the question is; how can Atta-Mills surround himself with people who appear to be hostile to the Rawlingses and completely ignore the latter, when the former who is today flaunting his freshly developed political-testicular-fortitude all over the place, was literally plugged from a lecture room and introduced to rigours of real political activism by the latter?

Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei

E-mail: justnoff@yahoo.com