In his last and final speech to the Labour Conference, former Prime Minister Tony Blair declared “You've given me all I have ever achieved, and all that we've achieved, together, for the country.” It was a speech filled with emotion. Emotion because it was a job Tony Blair loved ; emotion because there was an unfinished business to be finished and emotion because many who know the circumstances surrounding the handing over of power by Tony Blair to Gordon Brown know too well that the whole thing was like coup d’état. But three years after handing over power to Mr Gordon Brown, Tony Blair’s name has only appeared a few times in British politics. His silence on the level of criticisms against his predecessor is deafening. It is almost as if he doesn’t know what is happening as Gordon Brown sinks deep in the polls. The same is true with John Major and Margaret Thatcher. Both of them are still alive but have chosen to keep to themselves rather than meddle in an affair of which they have already made their contributions.

If we look beyond the confines of UK to the US, we have the likes of Jimmy Carter, George H W Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush who are still alive and kicking. And yet one hardly hears of them. They do have occasions when they make their comments on issues of national importance as in the case of Republican Joe Wilson calling President Obama a liar. With regards to that matter, ex-president Jimmy Carter was quoted as having said that the treatment meted out to Obama was borne out of racism.

And yet here we have a Ghanaian ex-president whose voice is so loud it has literally become a cacophony. Not a day passes by without Rawlings appearing in the news. I am not sure who is to blame: the Ghanaian media who seem obsessed with him or it is the man’s loquacious nature which gets captured and reported. We will like to apportion the blame to the Ghanaian press, but the truth is that what do you expect them to do when Rawlings fails to address issues when afforded a platform in the international scene but chooses to use EVERY platform to criticise his opponents? Be it as it may, he is a Ghanaian and has the right to comment on any issue of national importance which he deems appropriate. No qualms about that. The Problem however does not lie in the comments he makes. There are two issues with Rawlings’ vituperations:

1. They are rather too frequent and hence lose their value. Martin Luther will like us to believe that “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter”. However in proverbs 17:28 we are admonished that “even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding”. Maybe our ex-president wants to take a cue from that biblical injunction.

2. The second issue is that in the eyes of Mr Rawlings the only perfect being is him: Of the Limann government, Mr Rawlings said “This has been the most disgraceful government in the history of our country”. And Kuffuor was not spared the vituperations of Mr Rawlings over his 8 year rule. He lambasted and lampooned Mr Kufuor as an incompetent and corrupt man. And yet everyone who had the patience and perseverance to follow what happened during the ( P)NDC era knows too well that that era was the cradle of one of the most corrupt regimes Ghana ever saw. I am not going to go into the minutiae of details. But every discerning mind knows too well that the holier-than-thou façade being portrayed by Rawlings is not an accurate portrayal of events. The M&J scandal is still glaring in our eyes.

It is however the barrage of criticisms against Prof Mills which has sent many tongues wagging. Soon after the learned man assumed the reigns of power, we started seeing Rawlings’ criticisms at their crescendo culminating in an article posted on this site by Spio Garbrah. In as much as I agree with most of the concerns raised by Dr Spio Garbrah, I am not sure if he (or indeed Mr Rawlings) has the moral grounds to advise President Mills on how to run his government. The fact is that Professor Mills may lack the spontaneity, exuberance, belligerence and aggressive approach to dealing with issues the way Rawlings does. President Mills may be dour and lacklustre as the Rawlingses will want us to think. But what is undisputable is that the learned man can certainly tell vintage claret from vin ordinaire. But when we say the president is dour, what precisely are we talking about? Are we saying that merely because he did appoint people Rawlings would have wanted to become ministers ? Are we referring to his adamantine stance on his refusal to organise a reshuffle ? Or are we referring to the refusal of the President to arrest, vilify and incarcerate people without allowing due process to take its natural course? It is obvious that took over power at a time of difficult economic circumstances. Five years back it would have been easy for him to go to America or Britain on bended knees asking for ‘alms’. That is not possible today. What that means is a redefinition of our mode of operation. That means sitting back and taking a critical examination of our circumstances, re-prioritizing our needs and then making that move. That I believe is what the learned is doing. Now, that takes time.

The ideal thing would have been for Prof Mills to make Mr Rawlings his advisor given that Rawlings has a lot of experience up his sleeves. There are however a number of reasons why President Mills may not be able to accept the admonitions of ex-president Rawlings:

? The very day Rawlings openly declared his support for Dr Spio Garbrah during the NDC primaries was the day he lost the moral high ground to advise Professor Mills. Rawlings is to the NDC party what our grandfathers are to us in a large family. The grandfather, even as he knows the strengths of particular individuals in the house, does not openly declare his allegiance to such : he maintains his neutrality. We were all witnesses to the campaign of calumny and mudslinging perpetrated during the campaign for the presidential slot of the NDC against the genteel personality of the learned man. What Rawlings should have done as the father of the party was to take a neutral stance on who becomes the presidential candidate even as his preferred choice was obvious. That is why Rawlings cannot advise Prof Mills.

? The second and perhaps the strongest reason why Rawlings cannot advise Prof Mills lies in an erroneous perception inculcated in the minds of the Ghanaian electorate by opponents of the Professor. For eight years, Professor Mills and his team spent time working out strategies to demystify the perception that Professor Mills is a puppet to Rawlings. To many Ghanaians, to vote for the NDC was to endorse the return of Jerryism : a phenomenon many Ghanaians find repugnant and repulsive to their conscience. Whiles Mills was going round telling Ghanaians that he has his own voice and could speak for himself, Rawlings’ loquacious nature was enough to tell Ghanaians that the Prof was telling fibs. So eight years down the line, is this not the right time for Mills to prove the doubting Thomasses wrong ? To accept the dictates of Rawlings’ whims and caprices will only give opponents of the President the arsenals and the voice to say “se ye ka ye?” That is why Rawlings cannot advise Prof Mills.

? The arrest and imprisonment , and the witch-hunting of ex-ministers during Mr Kuffuor’s regime was something we all found inappropriate. Particularly repugnant was the ignominious incarceration of Tsatsu Tsikata. Ghanaians were unanimous in their condemnation of Mr Tsikata’s arrest and imprisonment. The witch-hunting was a vicious cycle that needed to be stopped. If Professor Mills has taken it upon himself to break that cycle by following the due process of law, I think that does not make him slow. We know that Mr Rawlings would have preferred that all ex-ministers during Kuffuor’s time were arrested and imprisoned without going through the due process of law. If Mills accepts that advice from Mr Rawlings, the democratic ideals we have tirelessly worked for will come to naught. That is why Rawlings cannot advise Prof Mills. Many of us Ghanaians may not like the Rawlings brand, but we know that it is a brand that will have an everlasting and telling impact on our psyche. Rawlings is hugely charismatic both in Ghana and outside. God has endowed him with a nature which many find admireable. The problem however is that those qualities are not being harnessed to their full potential. Rawlings needs to realise that he doesn’t need to be in Ghanaian politics to help the needy.

He was in power for well over twenty (20) years and yet when I walk down the streets of Nima I still see beggars begging for alms:

He was in power for well over twenty (20) years and yet when I drive down Spintex road, I still see children of school going age selling dog chains:

He was in power for well over twenty (20) years and yet there is still corruption in high places:

He was in power for well over twenty (20) years and yet our gutters are still choked:

He was in power for well over twenty (20) years and yet housing remains a significant problem to the average Ghanaian:

He was in power for well over twenty (20) years and yet criminals and such like are still respectable in our society: some of our hospitals are still death transit camps, and our democracy still means paper guarantees of abstract liberties in that people are still being discriminated against on grounds of sexual orientation, tribal affiliation and religion inclination.

These were the ills in our society which Rawlings promised to rid us of when he usurped power from the constitutionally-elected government of Dr Hilla Limann. And if after about 20 years in power, these ills are still manifesting themselves in a much uglier and more sophisticated manner, then we can only draw two conclusions : either Rawlings was pursuing his own clandestine agenda or he is refusing to accept that there is a limit to man’s natural abilities.

About 8 years after stepping down, all we hear is Rawlings blaming everyone but himself for the morass of socio-economic Ghana faces. It would have been nice for the ex-president to use his influence to secure funding for the building of libraries in the Volta Region in particular and all over Ghana in general. It would have been nice to see Rawlings use his influence to secure funding for the building of homes for the disabled in our society. It would have been nice to see Rawlings championing the cause of anti discrimination against the less privileged in our society.

The truth is that one doesn’t need to be in mainstream politics to be of service to society. My friend (who coincidentally is an Ewe) went home quite recently and decided to visit his alma mater in his hometown. To his utter dismay, the books and furniture they used 20 years back were the ones still being used today in the school. When he returned abroad and discovered that a school here was getting rid of its used facilities, he took them, shipped them home and now the facilities are benefitting the whole community. That was my friend’s widow’s mite to his village. If my friend, in his modest ways can get that done, then suffice it to say that Rawlings can do a billion of that.

My position in this article is not to criticise Rawlings or to praise Mills. My position is to admonish Rawlings to look outside the box. Rather than using every platform afforded him to lambast and lampoon people who hold views contrary to his, he must channel such energies towards the emancipation of the downtrodden in our societies. Like I said, Rawlings does not need to be in mainstream politics to show to the average Ghanaian that he has the country at heart. He can use his influence both in Ghana and internationally to raise funds to do projects that will benefit the so-called oppressed people in our society. Only then will his mark remain indelible.

Until then, what we are seeing in Rawlings is a man who has a clandestine agenda to pursue and is trying to do that on the backs of the ordinary citizens of Ghana.

Until then the Rawlings we see is a man whose esurience for power has almost completely beclouded his sense of judgement and objectivity.

Adams Sheriff Yakubu

dangonja@googlemail.com