‘Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely’ – Lord Acton

The above-captioned political maxim suffices to describe President John Evans Atta-Mills’ persona, especially with respect to his comments regarding his relationship with Fmr President Jerry John Rawlings in his recent press briefing.

How fascinating is it that Mills could look into the eyes of over 25 million Ghanaians through the lenses of his rented NDC mobsters who call themselves journalists and make the wildest claim that he has a good relationship with his former mentor? The statement by the president, “I have never said anything bad against President Jerry John Rawlings” does not only smack of hypocrisy but a calculated machination to use a rented and compliant media to stage manage his subterfuge.

Even a child of an appreciable cognition can appreciate the fact that the president’s inaction in reprimanding his appointees and NDC surrogates – SAMUEL OKUDZETO ABLAKWA, HARUNA IDRISU, BETTY MOULD IDRISSU, KWESI PRATT JUNIOR (THE NEW NDC SPOKESPERSON), ELVIS AFRIYIE ANKRAH, RAYMOND ARCHER etc – from the constant denigrations of the founder of the party he leads can only be a tacit endorsement of such acts. It is a well-known fact that these are not coincidental events that burst on the media scene in spontaneity; they are well orchestrated and managed events emanating from meetings at the Castle, the seat of government. But for the president, the Chief Executive of the State, by whose authority these “attack dogs” have been unleashed to bark out insults at their founder, to turn around to try to create the impression that he has a good relationship with his former mentor, that must be a great insult to the intelligence of the people of Ghana. One wonders why a discerning, responsible, and accountable media would not follow up with questions to probe with the facts as every Ghanaian knows it. A rented mob disguised as a media!

Dishonesty, treachery, and manipulations have all combined to ruin the once-glorious and respected image of the God-fearing man. Mills will certainly go down as a two-faced president who preached the virtue and practiced the vice. Indeed, that is what power does to people with inordinate desire to rule when even they have nothing to show for the goodwill and favorable economic environment that has prevailed over his term, except corruption and greed.

Who in Ghana doesn’t know that all one needs to do as an NDC member to be appointed to political office is to simply take the founder of the party and his family to the gutters or the cleaners and sure you will be rewarded with a ministerial appointment? This is how petty, mean, and ungrateful the president, John Evans Atta Mills, and his underlings can be. But, surely, the proverbial stone that the builders reject will again become the corner stone. Most NDC sympathizers and supporters, disheartened by these events, have decided to keep their cool to watch events run their full course. There is no doubts elections are around the corner and a deceptive African president is looking for ways to galvanize a disillusioned and heartbroken grassroots for support, so he now see the usefulness of wooing the man once considered by the NDC General-Secretary as ‘a barking dog.’

Did Ghanaians hear the former president and the founder of the NDC, Jerry John Rawlings, during the lecture that marked the 30th anniversary celebration of the 31st December Revolution, almost at tears narrating how even the Mills administration continuous to sabotage private initiatives of the wife’s NGO? Did we hear the rhetorical question from the founder of the NDC ‘are these our own people?’ Did we hear that ‘some unseen faces had ensured that water supply to his wife’s house was cut off, compelling her to buy water from tankers?’

President Mills, you have obviously tried many a time to run away from your own acts, but the shadows come after you wherever you turn. You chose to escape from Ghana on Christmas Eve to avoid events marking the 31st December Revolution, the genesis of the NDC, but only to make a big fool of yourself with barrages of articles exposing every minutia of your activities in the United States. Can you not be honest with your countrymen just for once and shame the devil you have been praying in the castle everyday to exorcise? Have you become your own devil?

Atta-Mills should stop rubbing salt in our wounds and take his jaded lies to the marines. We can go on to draw the attention of the public to a litany of inconsistencies about the president’s statements, but that doesn’t get us anywhere. The NDC in its current state is cancerous and not until the cancerous parts go under the surgeon’s knife, we would advise the former president to tread cautiously with the recent overtures coming from the once insulting and belligerent state officials, who have tasted power and thought they can trample on us all, carefully.

President John Evans Atta-Mills, the God-fearing president, who superintends over criminal elements in government, take your lies to Obed Asamoah and Boakye-Djan, they are the only ones who would pretend there is no bad blood between you and your former mentor. Perhaps Boakye-Djan would remind you even in his senile mind that he promised to bring you and the former president together when he delivered his infamous speech after joining and wining the NDC primary in the South Jaman constituency. .

To sign off, let me remind you that “the evil that men does not only live after them but lives with them and after’ and the chickens are just home to roost.

NDC Social Democratic Forum

http://www.akatamanso.blogspot.com