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Opinions of Sunday, 29 August 2010

Columnist: Adjei, Gideon

Wisdom of Atta Mills

President Atta Mills has demonstrated to Ghanaians what a true leader must be. In opposition Atta Mills accepted two time presidential defeats without revolt. Whilst some men within his party were crying for dirty politics and revenge, Atta Mills stood for his peace advocacy slogan and got a popular title peacemaker (asomdeehene). Lovers of wisdom see Atta Mills as a great leader. On the other hand Trouble makers in our society call Atta Mills all kind of names.
Atta Mills’s academy was best seen in his approach to Akuffo Ado’s diatribe, calling Atta Mills Prof. do little. President Mills used psychoanalysis to deal with the attacks from Akuffo Addo.His response was that, “Prof do little is better than Prof do nothing”. I love that wisdom from Mills. There was no anger or bitterness from Mills about Akuffo Addo’s attacks, rather answered Akuffo in a mature way. Bravo to Mills for such academic maturity. I think Kuffor did the same good job with his “cold and hot water issue with Rawlings”.
Our past leaders had in some ways demonstrated psychoanalysis in their approach to attacks from minority political party. Nkrumah was called “too ambitious” and his response was that, “they say that I am ambitious if my ambition is for the sake of Ghana, Africa and the common man then my ambition is a necessary ambition”.
Busia talked about “whoever in politics must have a stomach to take insults”.