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General News of Tuesday, 14 August 2001

Source: Network Herald

Rawlings Is Unperturbed By NPP's Actions

The Director of Research of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Tony Aidoo has accused the ruling NPP government of attempting to do away with the memory of ex-President Rawlings and the ideals that he stood for.

In an interview with “Network Herald” newspaper, on proposed plans to change the name of the Rawlings Park to Mokola Square and the 31st December Market to Mokola Market, Mr Aidoo noted that the NPP is ruling by the maxim of “new king new law.”

He however cautioned the NPP that while it may have every right to effect the proposed change, it ought to remember that there will not be the needed political stability and continuity if people keep on changing everything to suit their political whims. “It is part of the politics of this present government to denigrate as much as possible anything to do with Rawlings. They want the history of this country to register that Rawlings was a bad dream for Ghana.”

When asked for the reaction of ex-President Rawlings to the proposed change of names of monuments bearing his name, he noted that Rawlings is unperturbed especially in the change of the Rawlings Park because it was informally named.

According to him, Rawlings was against any personality cult and even caused the military to take away a sign post which indicated that a road has been named after him at Burma Camp.

Dr. Tony Aidoo however wondered why nobody has advocated for anything to be named after Dr. Busia whose ideals the NPP claims to be practicising. “Is it because he was a very vindictive man. Even among his own people, they called for places to be named after Danquah but not Busia,” he lamented.