MADAM, LET IT GO!

(An open letter to Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings)

Dear Madam, your role in the formation and nurturing of the NDC cannot be over emphasized. You were there from the beginning and have been part of the painful process that finally gave birth to the NDC.

It is not an easy thing to have one’s husband arrested for attempting to overthrow the government of the day. The trauma it brings is enough to make many commit suicide. But, you did not choose that path of ignominy. No, you rather dug deep into your inner reserves and stood firm for your husband. It can be said that on your laps, that day, what will eventually become the NDC was born.

After your husband, Flt Lt. Rawlings, got arrested for the May 15 mutiny, friends you were counting on and whom you phoned refused to pick up their phones; they did not want to be associated with you. You were left alone to look for a counsel to defend your husband who was facing certain death. Whew! How lonely you would have felt at that time, especially as you were carrying a baby in your womb! Many of those who have the effrontery to hurl insults at you today would not have had the fortitude to hold on as you did. They would have withered like the grass in the harmattan. Yet, see them beat their chest as men when they wage their vain verbal war against you! The path great people tread is often that which is lonely. But in the end, many partake of the fruit of their labour. There is no doubt that your husband is a great man. Indeed, as we have recalled several times, in 2000, when Gabonese Radio station, Numbre Un, organized a poll for its African listeners to determine who in their view is the African of the Millennium, your husband, Flt. Lt Rawlings, beat both Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and Nelson Mandela to it. For many, your husband is a living legend. You deserve to share in his glory because behind every successful man, there is a woman. Your husband could not have reached the enviable height he had reached if another woman had been his wife. There is also no doubt that you have done more for the women of Ghana than any other personality in Ghana. Indeed, through your 31st December Women's Movement, you have brought the plight of women and the girl-child in Ghana to the fore-front of national agenda. Today, it is yielding good fruits for the nation.

In pursuit of your quest to reach out to Ghanaian women and the girl-child, you have been to the nook and cranny of this country in spite of your known health challenges. You have visited more villages and towns in Ghana than any other politician. Posterity should be and will definitely recognize your undying resolve to keep women and children's issues at the top of the nation's agenda. Dear Madam, your recent maneuverings within the NDC have, however, left a sour taste in the mouth of many of your admirers. It has created unhappy times within the party. It has led to the creation of two main camps within it, camps that fire verbal salvos at each other instead of at the party's opponents.  Madam, it is obvious to us that anger is at the core of your maneuverings and utterances and it is getting the better part of you. Are we wrong to say that President Mills is the source of your anger? We have spent sleepless night trying to figure out what he may have done to make you so angry to the extent that nothing can be done to placate you.

Dear Mrs. Rawlings, whatever it is, we believe that you have allowed your anger to get the better part of you to the extent that you seem not to be aware of how fast it is eroding the love many have for you. Anger is a negative force which, when nursed for a period of time, destroys the owner first. It is for this reason that the Bible enjoins Christians, of which you are one, not to allow the sun settle on their anger. But, you have failed to heed this admonishment from God; you have allowed the sun to settle on your anger. You have failed to pass this biblical test. The result is that it has blinded you to many things.

Firstly, madam, anger blinded you to the extent that you did not see anything wrong with some members of FONKAR attacking President Mills with very abusive and insulting language. But for anger, you will not allow it because it is a known fact that your children are well-behaved, which makes you deserve a pat on your back. So how come you allowed FONKAR boys, many of whom can be President Mill's grand-children, rain insults on him, a man, who, whether anyone likes it or not, is the President of Ghana. Granted that you did not ask them to put up such shameful behaviour, how come you did not stop them. For madam, none of them would have dared insult President Mills if you had warned them against such behaviour. You looked on while they trampled on the fifth Commandment of God with impunity, that which enjoys the young to “ honour your father and mother”, the only commandment with a promise.

Indeed, we had youngsters from the other so-called camp also doing the unimaginable by attacking your good self and your husband. However, must it be an eye for an eye? Would you want your biological children to insult those who insult you? Definitely not. Two wrongs do not make a right. We at the Daily Post have condemned every attack from within the party on President Mills, your husband and your good self and we shall continue to do so. Under no circumstance will we endorse any insult of the party's elders by the youth of the party. Such behaviour should be confined to the elephants. It is they who hail those who insult their elders. Madam, though ordinarily, we will have preferred that you did not contest against President Mills at the Sunyani Congress last year, it was your democratic right to do so. The results are history now. All that happened at the congress grounds are lessons we have all learnt. After all, every situation is a learning situation.

Our pain, however, is that your anger with President Mills has made you fail to sheath your dagger afterwards as Mrs. Hillary Clinton did after her defeat to Obama in the Democrat's primaries and join President Mills to campaign as she joined Barak Obama to do. This is a dent on your democratic credentials!

Madam, issues of probity and accountability have been one of the issues you say have not been handled well by the administration. Even if this is true, does it call for concerted efforts on your part to humiliate President Mills, bring his name to public ridicule and help bring back to government those who hate your guts and had wanted to imprison you? There are many more that reveal that anger is getting the better part of you but the most recent is your announcement that the NDC logo belongs to you. Madam, even if the logo was your choice and you personally designed it, we dare say it is not morally right for you to claim personal ownership of it because it has become the symbol of a political party, an organization that is made up of people with different shades of opinion. Can you imagine Amon Kotey saying he has registered Ghana's Coat of Arms and will withdraw it if certain conditions are not met?

Madam, you have to let go! You have to let go off whatever it is that had made you so angry with President Mills. You have to let go off that which makes you refuse to be placated. It is not an honourable thing to have elderly statesmen, revered men of God as well as Chiefs and Queens come to plead with you every day to let your anger abate to no avail. Even the Almighty God who we all worship was compelled by mortal man, Moses, to let go off his anger on the Israelites' way to Canaan from Egypt after He got fed up and angry with them for grumbling against him.Â

Madam, if you are able to let go off your anger, you will find that there are many beautiful things requiring your urgent attention. Despite great strides made in women and children's issue in Ghana, there are still a lot to be done. We believe that the world will hear about you and recognize you more if you channel your energies into an area God has blessed you with special talent to glitter. One does not need to be a President to be respected, loved and honoured. Madam Theresa never was a President but her work is an eternal one—mankind will always remember her.

June 4 is around the corner and everyone is waiting with bated breath for what will happen and what will be said. It is our hope that you will use the June 4 period to purge the anger out of your system. June 4 should be a rallying point for all Akatamansonians and not just some of them. This year's June 4 should be a platform for forgiveness and reconciliation. It should be the platform on which you reach out to even those within the party who have said vile thing against you – it is the cross you must carry as a Christian and a mother! Remember, you are the mother of the party whether you or any other person likes it or not!