Opinions of Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Columnist: Adofo, Rockson

Can President Mills Woo Former President Rawlings?

What an insurmountable task it will be for President Mills to woo Rawlings back into his bosom. To be honest with you, Rawlings can easily be wooed on either of the following two conditions. 1) President Mills will have to arrest all Kufuor's Ministers with probably Kufuor inclusive and throw them into prison without due process of law. He will henceforth have to do as he commands without question, by allowing he, Rawlings, to rule Ghana again via him. He, Atta Mills, should fulfil his promise made to consult him on policy decision 24/7. 2) President Atta Mills should promise without ever reneging on the promise to stand aside for Mrs. Konadu Agyemang Rawlings to go for the NDC flagbearer's slot come their Congress in late 2011. Without ready to go down the path of one way or the other as just stated, the NDC and Atta Mills should not waste their precious time as Togbe Avaklasu Rawlings will not budge. Rawlings will never again let Atta Mills fool him, for that is obvious. He will take Agya Atta to his adored and most revered Antoa Nyamaa Shrine to make any such promise on oath, the only assurance to him that the promise will not be broken.



Will President Mills continue to be his own man or he will agree to become Rawlings' school boy - poodle as was anticipated? The choice is NDC's. Yielding in to the "buga buga" instructions to be issued by Rawlings will surely incur the wrath of Ghanaians, for that Agya Atta should take note. Rawlings has damaged him beyond repair through his public vituperations. This may not only be hard but shameful for Rawlings to lick his own vomit by saying all that he had been saying about President Mills was false. Will President Mills no longer be the "Atta Mortuary man", the dog, the incompetent one and the "Konongo Kaya" as known to Rawlings, just to mention a few?



How will Rawlings sell his campaign 2012 messages about Atta Mills to discerning Ghanaians if he chose to settle their differences amicably? As long as Rawlings sees himself as born to rule, no matter what Atta Mills does, they cannot become the old known buddies again. Rawlings doesn't make sense to me with his lawless demands on Atta Mills. Unless Agya Atta wants to become equally senseless, I will advise him to pursue his "Better Ghana Agenda" and leave Ghanaians to decide his fate come 2012. Posterity will judge whether he had been a successful President or not.



My bet is it will be hard for President Mills to win back Rawlings if indeed he wants to, without succumbing to one or the other of the conditions stated above. On the other hand, it will be a disgrace for Rawlings to go back to the public to issue a statement withdrawing all his malicious allegations made against Atta Mills all because he wanted power anyhow. In either way, both are sandwiched between rock and a hard surface. Their choices are limited. They are two strange bedfellows when it comes to decision taking and policy implementation. As one is a senseless overbearing dictator, the other is a gentle God-Fearing person.



I leave it to NDC, Atta Mills and Rawlings to battle it out. Who will make the first move, Atta or Togbe Avaklasu? We need peace so please make peace reign.



Rockson