Rawlings' Opinions No Longer Relevant - NDC

Like a condescending parent who has suddenly run out of patience with a petulant child, soft-spoken National Organizer of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Yaw Boateng Gyan, has threw caution to the wind and openly denunciated the party’s founder, ex-President John Jerry Rawlings, blaming him for all the turmoil in the NDC.

According to Opanyin Gyan, as the NDC National Organiser is sometimes referred to, with the current political compensation, some of the opinions of the former President are no longer relevant.

To him, inasmuch as Mr. Rawlings has a lot of experience under his sleeves when it comes to politics, times have changed and there are dynamics in politics now.

“Our party system has gotten to the stage where if you are a founder or leader in the party and you don’t shut up, sit somewhere silently and keep some of your opinions to yourself and sometimes send people to work for you, your utterances will lead to some people either revering you or disrespecting and bad-mouthing you,” he said.

Speaking on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo Morning show, Mr. Boateng Gyan asserted that all the commotion and the bad press that has hit the ruling party recently are as a result of some utterances and actions by ex-President Rawlings.

He maintained that the open endorsements of President Mills’ candidature across the length and breadth of the country are as a result of certain remarks made by Mr. Rawlings as he canvassed support for his wife.

“Rawlings is to be blamed for the turmoil in the party; he first declared his support for his wife when he met party members in Kumasi forgetting that those behind usually follow the footsteps of those in front. He opened the floor for others to also make their endorsement,” he stated.

According to him, he received several complaints from leading members of the party when from across the regions, some executives began to openly endorsed President Mills, but he opted not to take any action since the founder (Rawlings) first went against the rules by declaring support for his wife.

“What I have noticed in Ghana is that we cover the truth with the right hand and use the left hand to look for the truth, meanwhile the truth is under our right hand so if we just take your hands off, the truth will be seen so why don’t we want to speak the truth.

When Rawlings advocated that nobody should vote for Mills because he is incompetence, nobody questioned him but as soon as the regions started the declaration, people started calling me asking why the regions were declaring then I also throw it back to them that why didn’t they complain when Rawlings declared in Kumasi?” he quizzed.

The NDC National Organiser recalled that Professor Mills was relatively unknown when Mr. Rawlings first introduced him to the inner circles of the party by making him his Vice, yet the party accepted him because they trusted his (Rawlings’) judgment of Rawlings. He, however, stressed that the time has come for him (Rawlings) to be told in no uncertain terms that those days are past.

“..so we can’t really figure out what his problems are….there have been instances where Rawlings has backed certain people but they failed miserably…no matter how high esteem the NDC holds him, he must be reminded that some of his views are not relevant any longer,” Yaw Boateng said.