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Opinions of Monday, 31 October 2016

Columnist: Adofo, Rockson

Is this the hardest thing to do, J. J. Rawlings?

Former President John Rawlings Former President John Rawlings

By Rockson Adofo

Former President Jerry John Rawlings is today being asked two very simple questions, but which may be very difficult for him to answer.

The first question goes, Mr Rawlings, knowing that the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the party you single-handedly formed out of your sweat, and sealed with your blood, is not living up to your envisioned pivotal principles of probity, accountability and transparency, but has become markedly corrupt, incompetent and lawless, will you still support it to win the Election 2016, or you will have it lose it?

The second question is, if you want NDC and President Mahama to lose the upcoming 7 December 2016 elections which they surely will, then could you openly come out to campaign for, or give your blessings to, Nana Akufo Addo and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) or your wife and her National Democratic Party (NDP) to win Election 2016, regardless of your frailty that comes with old age as mockingly being asserted by Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of NDC?

These are the two simple but delicate questions being asked to our former President J. J. Rawlings, the person to have ruled Ghana longer than anyone else, either living or dead, in the annals of Ghana’s politics.

Mr Rawlings has since the late President Evans Atta Mills’ (who died under mysterious circumstances and whose autopsy report has been withheld from the public) election as the President of Ghana, had several run-ins with the very political party, NDC, that he cunningly formed with the probable intention of staying in power for life but only to have his expectations truncated by the Western international stakeholders who always aspire to have true democracy gain ramifications in the world as much as possible.

He was forced to transfer power from the military junta (Provisional National Defence Council = PNDC) he headed to oppress Ghanaians from 31 December 1981 until 1992 to a civilian government. He did simply overturn his coat; formed the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, and then stood for elections to win two 4-year terms either genuinely or dubiously.

How he formed the NDC or won the two consecutive terms as a civilian President to rule Ghana for another eight years is now history to me. It is done and dusted or should I say, it is gone?

Now, his party is performing abysmally. The party and its leaders including President Mahama are unprecedentedly corrupt, clueless, avid perpetrators of lawlessness and the practice of selective justice, insulting and extremely nepotistic in the selection of Government Ministers. Will former President Rawlings in the face of all the glaringly established shortcomings of the NDC and its leadership still support them, have them win the upcoming 2016 general elections or he will have them lose it?

I would expect him to come out boldly to tell the general public the answers to the two simple questions I have asked him today, Saturday 29 October 2016.

I now admire Mrs Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings even though I once detested certain attitudes of hers that I found very untoward. Who am I to continue to begrudge her if she has repented of her sins or mistakes and has since been forgiven by God, our Maker?

Seeing that the current NDC leaders and government are corrupt, she has not only disowned them but also, mounted a political challenge to get them out of power by forming her own political party, NDP.

I expect former President Rawlings to be like his wife. He has to take a bold decision to support either NPP or NDP to win the upcoming 7 December 2016 election because the NDC has let him and the nation down through their greediness, and unceasing acts of love of thievery hence giving rise to the “greedy bastards and babies with sharp Dracula fangs” like Okudzeto Ablakwah, Solomon Nkansah, Sam George, Koku Anyidoho aka Margaret Jackson and Nana Akua Tweneboah Koduah, Allotey Jacobs etc.

Please Mr Rawlings, let me see your side of the Whiteman’s blood in you working. The Whiteman is bold to come out to take a public stand against their own party when they see the party to be veering away from the truthful principles they believe in.

I have seen this happening in the British politics. Lately, a Conservative (Tory) MP, Frank Zacharias Robin "Zac" Goldsmith, who won election as MP for Richmond Park, has resigned from the Tory party and as a Tory MP to contest for by-election as an independent candidate for same constituency. This is all because he does not agree with the Tory Prime Minister Mrs Theresa May and her government declaring official support for expansion of Heathrow airport against the wish of the people of his Richmond Park constituency.

His constituency will be affected by the expansion. Most houses in the constituency will be force-purchased and bulldozed to give way to the expansion aside from the carbon-emission and noise related pollutions to be suffered by the constituency

Mr Rawlings, if he really cares about Ghanaians, and sympathises with their plight as brought about by the callousness and visionless of the very party he created through his own blood and sweat, then I expect him to come out to support NPP to win election 2016. He has at least the moral obligation to be honest with Ghanaians for once.

On which side of the political divide does he stand on Election 2016, was I to narrow down the questions? Is he for NPP & NDP or he is still for NDC? Is this the hardest question to answer, or is this the hardest thing for him to do?

If he was bold to execute two coup d’états, knowing the risk of facing public execution was he to fail, then he should be audacious enough to answer my simple questions posed to him today.

I do not want him to NOT be part of the players through whom God is effecting a change in government from President Mahama and NDC to Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP on 7 December 2016. The wind of change that will sweep President Mahama and the NDC from power like a fearful hurricane devastatingly clearing everything in its path, has started blowing with no one able to stop it except God Almighty, but who has Himself started that ferocious wind.

It was not a joke when Nana Akufo Addo declared with certainty that the battle of his stake for Ghana’s presidency is the Lord’s.

Mr former President J. J. Rawlings, are you for a change in government from NDC, the bigger devil, to NPP, your presumed, but smaller, devil, or you still stand by the sophism (an argument that seems true but is really false and is used to deceive people), the “Devil you know is better than the Angel you don’t know” or “a bird in hand is better than two in the bush”?

VOTE NANA AKUFO ADDO FOR PRESIDENT ON 7 DECEMBER 2016 DESPITE THE CRAZY EFFUSIONS OF ANGER AND DESPAIR BY THE “PAMPASO” PROGRAMME PRESENTER SALIFU MAASE, ALIASE MUGABE.