By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Following the massive flooding of several regional capitals and towns across the length and breadth of the country with campaign poster-portraits of former first lady Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, by a group supportive of her 2012 presidential ambition, the Regional Women Organizers of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) issued a statement sharply reprimanding Mrs. Rawlings for brazenly seeking to undermine the Mills-Mahama government, as well as the latter’s so-called Better Ghana Agenda (Ghana News Agency 10/28/10).
The NDC women’s group also described the masterminds behind the Agyeman-Rawlings posters as “faceless cowards” who were hell-bent on destroying the chances of the party at the 2012 polls. And in what appears to reflect gaping fissures of grievous political infighting among some leading NDC figures, the women organizers impugned both the party loyalty of the former first lady and her integrity as a mother with nurturing instincts.
In particular, the women organizers poignantly recalled the fact of the NDC vice-chair’s prompt upbraiding of Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, the deputy Information minister, in what the life-president of the 31st December Women’s Movement claimed to have been a devious attempt by Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa to irresponsibly and preemptively consign the unreserved endorsement of Mrs. Rawlings for the Mills-Mahama government. To the foregoing effect, therefore, the NDC Regional Women Organizers urged Mrs. Agyeman-Rawlings to unreservedly condemn her poster masterminds.
“It is therefore disturbing that with regard to the recent matter which is undermining unity within the party and… the work of President Mills, Mrs. Rawlings [has delayed] in distancing herself from the unlawful conduct of the faceless and nameless so-called foot soldiers,” said the NDC-RWO. The latter also appeared to sarcastically suggest that Mrs. Rawlings was, somehow, smack-dab behind the attempt of the self-proclaimed foot soldiers of the former first lady to effectively derail the Atta-Mills government.
“As faceless and nameless as they are, they have made public their telephone numbers [by] which radio and TV stations are reaching them[,] and so it should not be difficult for Mrs. Rawlings to reach them and ask them to stop dragging her name in the mud,” the NDC-RWO maintained.
Needless to say, if Mrs. Agyeman-Rawlings harbors any presidential ambitions in the lead-up to Election 2012, the NDC Regional Women Organizers would have the former first lady understand in no uncertain terms that under no circumstances, whatsoever, would she be facilely ceded any electioneering campaign quarter among their ranks, the organizers’ deep appreciation for the healthy competitive culture of democratic governance notwithstanding: “We pledge our unflinching support for President Mills and we have no doubt that a Better Ghana will be built for NDC’s mandate to be renewed in 2012.”
And in an obliquely worded cautionary note, the NDC Regional Women Organizers wondered why Mr. Rawlings would so unwisely allow his wife’s morbid presidential ambitions to tarnish his hard-won and cherished image as Founding Father of the National Democratic Congress: “The delayed silence from Mrs. Rawlings is fueling lots of speculations which do not augur well for the image of our Founder, hence our call for Mrs. Rawlings to immediately distance herself from the misconduct of the faceless and nameless persons so that as a party and government, we can focus on the work ahead and build the Better Ghana that Ghanaians voted the President to build.”
The problem with the issuance of their press release is that the NDC Regional Women Organizers do not appear to have sedulously, and studiously, followed the strategic scheming and political rhetoric of the founder of their own party. Indeed, had they heeded Mr. Rawlings’ numerous assertions regarding his 20-year rule of Ghana, which was to be logically followed by the pioneering presidency of his wife’s, they would not have wasted precious time, mental and emotional capital crafting what essentially and glaringly appears to be a desperate and, perhaps, even a belated attempt by the RWO to rekindle the sputtering embers of the Atta-Mills presidency.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and the author of “Marlena: Sexual Indignities” (Atumpan Publications/Lulu.com, 2009). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.
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