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Opinions of Saturday, 16 April 2011

Columnist: Sangaparee, Clement

We Need Both Prez. Mills And Rawlings

We Need Both Prez. Mills And Rawlings To Win The 2012 General Elections

I am calling on his Excellency President J. E. A. Mills and Former President Rawlings to come together and settle their differences to enable the NDC win the 2012 general elections on a United Front once and for all.

We have realized that the intention of Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings who is a former first lady to contest the sitting president has brought about sharp divisions in the NDC as a party, which the leadership of the NDC are playing the ostrich by telling the public that there are no factions in the party. We must not disregard any group’s suggestions just because we are in power. It will be recalled that immediately after the NDC won the general elections in 2009 and Prof. Mills was sworn in as President of the Republic of Ghana on 7th January, 2009, there was a Negative slogan coined from the Castle Identifying some party members as the Rawlings Boys from an imaginary white House who will never benefit from anything in the Mills’ government and the Mills Boys from the Castle who controls everything in the party and the government.
This is the end result of those negative and divisive utterances of the so-called Mills’ Boys whose extreme recklessness has resulted in the intention of Nana Konadu to contest the sitting President of the Republic of Ghana. We wish to warn that the NDC risks losing the 2012 general elections if it fails to unite Prez. Mills, Former Prez. Rawlings and his wife and rather try to play the ostrich by declaring their so-called support for the president’s candidature as done by the Ashanti Regional NDC a week ago. It seems the NDC as a party is in a hurry to go back to opposition in 2012, if not, why should the leadership continue to behave like this. The party leadership and most govt. appointees have been mis-informing the President to believe that all is well at the grass roots while the opposite is always the case.
The so-called Mills’ Boys from the Castle must not think that they can ignore and sideline Rawlings and His wife and go along to win the general elections in 2012. The Rawlings factor can never be sidelined in the NDC to enable the party to win the general elections because cadres have been targeted and painted black right from the Castle through the National and Regional Secretariats of the NDC down to the various constituencies nationwide, as if they (cadres) are rather strangers in the party. The NDC party constitution recognizes cadres who are the foundation of the NDC party and Not the latter day Saints who are always mis informing the President that all is well in the country while thousands of people go to bed hungry. On the other hand, the so-called Rawlings Boys in the NDC cannot also win the 2012 general elections without the support of the Mills’ Boys at the Castle. The thousand and one questions are that we want to ask the NEC, which is the highest decision making body of the NDC is whether the NDC as a party in government is ACTUALLY READY TO GOVERN THIS COUNTRY for 8years and beyond as we claim. Can we go into the 2012 general elections on a divided front and beat the NPP led by Nana Akuffo Addo? The entire leadership of the NDC and the NEC knows what it means when Prez. Mills is removed as the flagbearer for 2012. They also knows what it means if Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings should contest the sitting President and fail to win the presidential primaries on 9th July 2011. Frankly speaking the behavior of Ex-Prez. Rawlings and that of the sitting president on one hand and the decision of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings to contest the sitting president on the other hand is creating confusion, uncertainty and disillusion among Ghanaians in general and millions of NDC members in particular so we call on all the stakeholders to cease fire and unite for victory in the 2012 general elections because we need both Prez. Mills and Jerry Rawlings and his wife to win the 2012 general elections. I wish to state that no matter how unpopular the NPP flagbearer may be, he will sweep the 2012 general elections if this divisions go on daily in the NDC because we beat the NPP with only 40,000 votes in 2008. When that happens posterity will never forgive, the NDC national executive members, All leading NDC members and all the members of the Council of State in this country.
If somebody is trying to contest the sitting president, why can’t the party leadership sit down with that person, but rather decide to insult that person all over the place with some constituency executives running away from a visit by that person because they have been instructed from above not to meet that contestant? Whether we like it or not, it will be come an indictment on the President’s performance for the past two and a half years if the former first lady is allowed to pick a nomination form to contest Prez. Mills, in 2012 without being prevailed upon to stop that attempt. It is very dangerous to take entrenched positions in the party because members of the United Cadres Front nationwide joined the 31st December revolution with “Charlie wotes” and returned with the same “Charlie Wotes” and the unlucky ones paid dearly with their lives, but we have seen that some few appointees of Prez. Mills have rather become businessmen and women becoming rich over night instead of working as the true servants of the public hence the numerous agitations by foot soldiers all over the country because their petitions sent through the party structure are not always treated well or even rejected. The NDC must forget 2012 if Prez. Mills and Rawlings are not united. All those whose petitions were rejected or thrown into waste paper baskets always direct their petitions to the founder of the party and his wife who are also helpless, hence the numerous footsoldier agitation nationwide. Is it how a crime to speak the truth in the NDC? Cast your minds back, that dangerous power struggle in Dr. Limann’s PNP government in 1980 which enabled the PNDC to topple that government in Dec. 1981, but now that we are in a constitutional rule, Nana Akuffo Addo will simply intervenue and ride to victory without sweat even though he may not be popular in the 2012 general elections. They are very united and very serious to return to power while we in the NDC have engaged in needless power struggle to go back to opposition and rot away for donkey years. Is any body listening? I am done

Aluta Continua !!!


………………………………………..
Clement Sangaparee – Member
(Municipal Organiser United Cadres Front Obuasi)

Distribution: All Media Houses

e-mail: clementsang@yahoo.com