Mills May not be Rawlings’ Poodle; he is certainly a Rawlings’ Cosset.

Gaby’s liberty to perceive of John Mills as a poodle is as unfettered as his subjective opinion on any work of art, hence his sublation after nine years long perception of him as compared to how he beholds him today is equally subjective yet that does not absolve Mills of being a poodle. Before and even at the time when Gaby wrote about Mills as a poodle in The Statesman, this particular trait of Mills had been identified by the general Ghanaian public as commonplace in the eyes and ears of everybody however Gabby had the greatest and widest opportunity as a newspaper editor-in-chief to publish his views on this hackneyed fact for public consumption and recognition. Mills may now be trying desperately to shrug off these poodle-like shackles as he has ever been to Rawlings it can be subsumed that he has indeed been Rawlings’ and NDC’s cosset and poodle. Though it is expected of him to be his own man as President of Ghana, can he ever be so, hypocoristic in speech, thought and manners as he is?
In his own words, whiles on his 2000 campaign tour, then Vice President and NDC Presidential candidate John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills declared; “I will consult President Rawlings 24 hours seven days a week” to a tumultuous applause by his NDC crowded gathering. This was a seemingly solemn pledge but it has later turned out to be obreptitious and fawning message sent by John Mills to NDC faithful purported to reach the ears and attention of his ‘maker’ John Rawlings. Mills may have made this gnathonic ‘political talk’ [as has become a common excusing NDC glotology] just to wheedle Mr Rawlings into keeping him in his good books for his master’s image to continue covering and shining on him in his bid to become Ghana’s most supposed prestigious President with a so-called professorial accolade only to prove to be a mare’s nest and the most expensive Greek gift for Ghanaians, that is worse than his ‘maker’s 19 years regime.
It may be recalled that Mr Rawlings had picked pauciloquent and dulciloquous John Mills from his obscure doldrums and transformed him overnight from his impecunious state into a rather gagged thought executing veep and politician after the former had seriously assaulted and inflicted actual bodily harm on veep Arkaa before dumping him. Here is associate professor of commercial law who has not written a single text book on Commercial law for students of Commercial law yet his party have made so much noise about him in publicity as the most outstanding lawyer more than even the celebrated Lord Denning has in legal history. Having declared John Mills in the most undemocratic Sweduru declaration [Sweduru happens to be the home town of John Mills] to the jaw-dropping amazement and anger of other potential leadership aspirants in-waiting in the NDC, all that John Mills could do to show honoris gratia in appreciation for being his master’s secretly kept but ultimately declared alder-liefest was to frame a honey-worded insincere “political talk” statement capable of keeping Rawlings swollen-headed – I will consult President Rawlings 24 hours seven days a week -

At the time of making this supposed ‘political talk’ statement, though it’s presumed not to be so, hardly did anybody think how insincere John Mills could be in his own words and to his ‘maker’ John Rawlings, his party as a whole and to Ghanaians. Like the Biblical real Jesus who had earlier premonitions of his imminent betrayal by his most trusted disciple Peter to happen without fail, Ghana’s so-called Junior Jesus probably needed the vaticinal caveat of Artemidorus to forewarn him of his imminent ‘stab in the back’ by Mills, his fidus Achates, his favourite cosset and indeed his poodle once he becomes President. Though Gaby amongst millions may have reneged his earlier perception of John Mills as Rawlings’ poodle for not consulting him 24/7 as said earlier, let’s not be oblivious to the fact that a poodle is not all the time following in leash; it leads the way on leash on many occasions pulling its owner along or may be carried in arms like a baby yet in either way a poodle is always controlled within supervisory parameters of its leash by the image to which it may be tethered or attached. John Mills will ever remain a poodle if not to Rawlings who brought him up as his cosset, to the Awhois for the fact that after posing docility and submission to Rawlings and the NDC who catapulted him onto the Presidency, John Mills, upon the superior Nkrumahist political advice and support of the Awhois has cunningly brought in CPP and Nkrumahism through the back door while Rawlingsism is rejected. John Mills is currently ‘sitting on hot coals’ as a result of incurring the wrath of his ‘maker’ who if he had his way as before would have staged a putsch against him as he did to Dr Limman but woe betides him this time in Ghana.
John Mills’ poodle ironic imagery came to be established when John Rawlings, in his quest for a successor to Arkaa whom he found to be too strong for him at the seat of government saw the pusillanimity in soft-spoken Mills as a suitable choice for a veep who could be easily malleable and tractable to be bullied into compliance. Mills on his part showed every promise as the type of ‘toad-eating’ thought executing personality John Rawlings could ever find for his choice. Having personally hand-picked Mills as stated above and weaned him to hasty maturity with NDC milk, at the end of his term in 2000 ex-President John R. wanted John M to be his most heart-felt successor and protector, fearing the worm may turn against him in the course of time for his crimen laesae majestatis and other heinous crimes committed against Ghana and various other individuals respectively if a trusted successor like John M did not become President.
Guided by the above, John R, motu proprio made the most unprecedented, undemocratic and obnoxious Sweduru declaration in any democratic dispensation that saw John M. as his chosen Presidential candidate to lead the NDC, hence the genesis of John Mills’ poodle imagery. In the circumstance, at that time and even afterwards until post December 2008, with John Rawlings as the eagle-eyed all in all Griffin and sole owner of NDC, who born dog to have challenged any of his edicts? John Mills is now showing out to his ‘maker’ that he is not only an insincere and unfaithful poodle, he is also unfaithful and untrustworthy to his Party as he has been to his wife and to Ghana; yet his Presidency hovers around master Rawlings and NDC image which if any attempt is made to shirk would see him thrown over-board. John M has indeed swindled John R yet he sits as President of Ghana at the behest of angry John Rawlings who gnashes his teeth at him in dissatisfaction for sundry weighty reasons.
It is not only John Rawlings whom he has tricked, he has swindled the entire country for there is not a single pledge made by John Mills, whiles craving for sympathy votes that if he were given the mandate by Ghanaians that has been honoured. His political campaign catch phrase ‘Better Ghana agenda and Investor in People’ have proved to be Bitter Ghana and Detester of people after being voted into power. To buttress these points, Mills’ economic policies are the most draconian in Ghana’s history, probably only next to the belt tightening CPP era of the 1960s. National security is in shreds with ‘Gradgrind’ economic and security measures put in place. Mills/’Armajaro’ Mahama government deal with STX is a clear manifestation of insincerity to their deed of saying and faithlessness in Ghanaian architects and artisans. Fuel prices are on a daily increase and water attracts tax under his government plus many more. Father for all in his inaugural address is now father for some, a situation that is rousing the anger of his party foot soldiers who have come to begrudge him and his appointees.
A fortiori, from my point of view, Mills only doesn’t appear to be any more a Rawlings’ poodle in Gaby imagination simply because he has not succumbed to John R’s mutinous and murderous pursuits to “kill the cats” so Naadu Mills will not be handing keys to murderous operational vehicles to another set of Amartey Quays, Amedekas and Tekpors etc to abduct and kill judges, he has also not followed John R’s persecution agenda. Under Mills, at least, unlike under Rawlings, Ghanaians have not gone missing from homes and communities under mysterious circumstances following his orders and Nsawam prison has no yet accommodated former President Kufuor and his ministers without cause and through due juridical process as his ‘maker’ would have wished him to do, because he has no reason to do so; however Mills’ Rawlings-like homophobic, vindictive and blame-game image and disposition appear clear but in rather benign form, different from John R’s mutinous and blood-thirsty version of 19 years. To the chagrin of John R, John M has not only shown to have been a two-faced subservient semper paratus poodle of his as Gaby specified nine years ago, he still wears the poodle costumes ornated on him as his personal cosset. John Mills in his leadership of indecision is vacillating between John R and the Awhois who have since his ascendancy to the Presidency kept on zapping him from a distance like a stringed puppet, so confused Mills is sitting between two stools which situation makes his future re-endorsement for NDC leadership quite precarious. Getting a Guernsey from Rawlings for Mills to contest for his second term in 2012 will be a matter of some strong strategy compelling force for votes rather than any form of contentment.

Adreba Kwaku Abrefa Damoa, LLB; MPhil (London) London UK