Opinions of Friday, 5 September 2008

Columnist: Hayford, Kwesi Atta-Krufi

No Way... No How... No Mills

Not very long ago Professor Mills stood on a campaign platform in Denkyira and said some “NPP lawyers” who were his law students were writing and talking about his inability to lead the country. I am one of such students and I respect the professor for his legal knowledge and for the knowledge he imparted on me and many more such “NPP lawyers”. However I am still convinced that Professor Mills cannot lead Ghana in its quest to move forward in freedom, justice and economic prosperity.

Professor Mills was a good teacher; he is a very decent man. He is a good lawyer but he is in the wrong group. He was headhunted to partner President Rawlings in 1996 for reasons other than an NDC succession plan. He was headhunted for the reasons that I have written about earlier in my articles “Buy Mills Get Rawlings free”. With all due respect to the betting people of Ghana, when one goes to bet in a horse racing one does not bet on the jockey but on the horse. The jockey may be good and experienced but if he sits on a wrong horse, betters will not bet on that horse. The horse in this respect is the NDC and the jockey on this wrong horse is professor Mills. After being with a wrong horse for twelve years and riding it the last eight years, no wonder it begins to influence your performance.

At Apam-Mumford, Professor Mills recently displayed a trait of the influence on him by joining wrong company or as a jockey sitting on the wrong horse. The Professor is reported to have said that President Kufuor had sited cold stores in Kumasi instead of the coastal areas of Central Region and also because President Kufuor is not from the coast he does not care about the fisherman of the coast. He is credited as saying because there is no sea in Kumasi; President Kufuor cannot understand the economy of the sea.

This is most unfortunate and it goes to vindicate some us who have consistently and persistently said Professor Mills and his team have been contaminated by the politics of vindictiveness; of polarization and divisiveness; of whipping tribal sentiments; of abuse and personal attacks; of being little on issues and big on bitterness; of describing issues as act of mediocrity - the politics of the National Democratic Congress. As if it is choreographed to perfection, the NDC was out in the act of whipping sentiments – Asiedu Nketia on the police and “their intention to rig the December election”; Prof. Mills on Kufuor and the sea and Ama Benyiwa Doe on everything NPP. These are the people who are crisscrossing the country asking for mandate to run it – No way… No how… No NDC. We cannot turn back Ghana; It will be wrong; not with so many children to educate free of charge; not with the health care of so many of our people, women and children; not with so many of our pensioners and vulnerable people; not with our democracy and the deepening of it; not with our society needing modernisation; not with our economy needing transformation; not with Ghana engaging with Africa integrating with the rest of the world. No, we cannot afford to turn the clock back with Mills and the NDC; No Way... No How... No Mills.

We need to wrestle our nation back and keep moving forward; but before we can keep moving forward, we have to elect Nana Akufo-Addo. We have to move forward. Za mu gaba; wonya wohie; yereko y’anim. To the good people of Ghana, don’t turn back if they hail abuse at you; if they threaten your values and your freedom. The only person to take us there is Nana Akufo-Addo. He has always been there, on the side of the right - from anti-Unigov to Kumepreko. The only party to take us there is the New Patriotic Party.