NPP UK And Ireland Branch Press Statement

IN RESPONSE TO THE PRESS STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR ATTA-MILLS
We the membership of NPP UK and Ireland branch have read with dismay the confused and contradictory press statement issued by Professor John Atta-Mills, the 2004 NDC Presidential candidate and former Vice President of Ghana.
We are confounded by the eminent legal expert?s reasoning behind this press statement which seems to us is that: some of the excesses and corruption under the NDC administration are now being investigated and specifically the Office of the Attorney General has indicted Nana Konadu and the leadership of 31st December Women?s Movement over the way they acquired Nsawam Cannery. This indictment, according to Professor Mills, is a ?conflict signal? for Ghana.
We are even more disappointed with the lack of legal knowledge expressed in this press statement purporting to come from such a legal person. It makes us wonder if his political philosophy (that of NDC) is clouding his legal judgement. His statement confronts the rule of law, independence of the judiciary, peace, our hard won democracy and the very existence of our Constitution.
His statement suggests to us that these persons being tried should be above the law -?the untouchables? of Ghana - and that he is threatening that trying them would be a signal for civil war. This statement, we consider to be unfortunate.
We also wonder if really the person who is on record as saying ?mepe asomdwoe? (I want peace) is the same person courting violence, disorder and downrightly instigating public disorder, all simply because the 31st December Women Movement?s role in acquiring Nsawam Cannery as their own is being questioned at the courts.
It seems to us, in all contradictory terms, that Professor Mills is asking for a political connivance here. That is the government should not prosecute the excesses and corruption under the NDC administration so that one day if they are back in power they would return the favour. He is advocating a sort of Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) between the NPP and NDC not to prosecute each other in the spirit of reconciliation. That is what he reduced the recent seminar of party chairmen and an Ivorian delegation to. Well, Professor Mills, we have news for you; the NPP is not and will at no time be interested in such an understanding with the NDC, not even at the peril of the party. The NDC can decide to implement the vile and wayward threats of its founder at their recent Party Conference. He is known to have shot a few previous heads of state. Adding John Agyekum Kufour for him will just be adding another number. That is not our problem. What the NPP is about is to provide leadership. President Kufour cannot abdicate his duty as President because Rawlings in his Kangaroo Court mind has already sentenced NPP functionaries to 30 year sentence even before they are accused.
We say it is contradictory because in the same breadth as he is criticising the government in doing the decent thing in prosecuting corruption, by indicting Nana Konadu et al, he is also condemning corruption under President Kufour?s administration. He does not want Nana Konadu, Kofi Totobi Quakyi, Kwame Pepra etc. to be tried after a painstaking five-year investigation into their crimes, yet he wants Charles Bintim and Dr Anane tried even though the allegations against them are being investigated by the BNI and CHRAJ respectively.
Professor Mills seems to have forgotten the expression ?due process of the law? and is agitating for Kangaroo Court system where the will of the dictator rules. Prof, wake up! This is 2006 Ghana, not the 1980s and 1990s where the NDC and its antecedent PNDC believed in the will of the Rawlingses. The Machiavellian politics of the 80s and 90s are dead and buried and whoever pushed you to issue this statement is living in a fools? paradise. It beats our imagination here in NPP UK that an academic of your calibre and a legal expert of your standing should become a poodle of the Rawlingses who since 1979 have never worked to earn a wage but lived on the privileges and courtesies and the dignified silence of the good people of Ghana
The NDC have also issued a statement asking its members to picket the court, intimidate the judiciary so that they back off their darling Nana Konadu. Rawlings has also attacked the press, both home and abroad for not praise singing. Now can anybody in the NDC tell us in the NPP about playing Machiavellian Politics?
Nana Konadu may be a political goddess to you in the NDC but to the good people of Ghana she is a mere mortal, a citizen of Ghana who is not above the law.
We in the NPP UK and Ireland believe that the government of Ghana under NPP owes it to all Ghanaians to prosecute, in the court of law, any one it has credible evidence to have run foul of the law. If for this reason Professor Mills and those who think like him believe we should go down the line of Liberia, The Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone, so be it. We are tired and sick of threats of violence from the NDC and its cronies.
The difference between the NDC administration which Professor Mills presided over and that of the NPP government is that while the former stood by and facilitated the unfettered access of its main engine- the 31st DWM- to win the corporate height of Ghana without any investigation, the latter is wheeling its officials to the investigative machinery of the nation for any allegations. Hence the government submitted allegations against Dr. Anane and Chief Kufour?s hotel acquisition to CHRAJ and Charles Bintim before the BNI for investigation. This is what we call fighting corruption.
The professor also cites series of political arguments which sometimes bordered on sentimentality more than anything. For example he cites the fact that Mr. Totobi Quakyi was ill and that he was a young man who spent his youthful age serving Ghana. Mr Charles Bintim is equally young and we may dare to add na?ve, but that does not mean that if either of them is found to have done any act of impropriety, they should be pardoned.
The NPP administration will not be distracted by these infantile quibbles that Professor Mills has found as his new hobby but will continue to show leadership and will continue to put the nation on economic pedestal.
 The President is showing leadership through his recent visit to USA. He has managed to secure a $500million Millennium Challenge Funding to improve the lives of ordinary Ghanaians because the United States is so confident in President Kufour?s leadership. [read the following press statement from The White House, USA]
President Bush said Ghana's president, John Kufuor, "has done a fantastic job" for his country, specifically mentioning that Kufuor has kept his promises to his people by being honest to the government and by creating a stable economic platform.
"It's a statement of our respect, and it's a statement of our appreciation for somebody who is willing to invest in his people, who is willing to fight corruption, who is willing to help a market economy grow," Bush said.
SOURCE: THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
April 12, 2006]
 The economy is growing steadily
 The nation is investing in its children with the implementation of the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education with free school feeding which has quadrupled primary school attendance
 The NHIS is fast becoming a reality, even though as a new and fundamental health insurance scheme it has its teething problems
 Press freedom is working
 The independence of the judiciary is sacrosanct
 The liberty of the individual peace loving Ghanaians is guaranteed
 The government has extended a hand of reconciliation to all who are willing to receive it.
We would like to end this statement by reminding Professor Mills and the NDC that there is a difference between having an opposition and having a responsible opposition. A responsible opposition is the one that provides alternative policies and not that which professes threats, violence and intimidates the judiciary like the NDC is agitating.
We in the NPP advise our fellow party members, supporters, sympathisers and above all the discerning people of Ghana to exercise restraint and remain calm and not to descend into the gutter with the NDC and concentrate on the task of nation building
Long live Ghana.