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General News

[ 2017-02-27 ]

Former President Jerry John Rawlings

Ghana@60: Truth has no partisan colour - Rawlings
Former president Jerry John Rawlings has indicated
that truth has no partisan colour as the nation
marks 60 years of nationhood next week.

The former President is therefore challenging the
citizenry to restore the strength of the critical
mass and let truth prevail in the national
reconstruction effort.

Anything short of that, he added, would not augur
well for national reconstruction and development
efforts.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic
at his office over the weekend on the way forward
for the nation as it marks 60 years, the former
President, who is also the Founder of the National
Democratic Congress (NDC), was of the worrying
impression that “right and wrong have assumed
such an ugly partisan colour in the national
discourse”.

“As far as I am concerned, right is right and
wrong is wrong, irrespective of who says or does
it, and we need to do something more urgently to
restore their values in the true sense,” he
declared.

He warned that if the citizenry looked on
unconcerned, without working to restore the
strength of what he called “the critical
mass”, then “right and wrong will continue to
be held hostage in a partisan way, irrespective of
whether it is right or wrong”.

“It is unfortunate that some refuse to see why I
do not engage in such politics. I feel morally,
ethically and duty bound to give praise where it
is due and condemn where necessary. This is
because it is harmful to our national development
and human civilisation in general when we are
clearly going wrong,” he insisted.

Former President Rawlings was of the view that
instead of the citizenry and more so political
party supporters holding their leaders and
government in check, the supporters think doing
that would make the government weak and
vulnerable.

“In the course of time if we do not hold our
government in check, we grow weaker because the
wrong persists, and when I take it upon myself to
speak, it turns into another ‘heeey!’

“I will continue to give credit where it is due,
even to a perceived enemy or opposition,” he
assured.

Critical mass

“Whether it is due to ignorance, hypocrisy or
rabid hatred, our inability to commend when it is
due, is helping to dis-empower the forces of
virtue and integrity.

“We are denying ourselves the right to cultivate
and hold on to the might of right,” he stated.

The former President noted that, “For the
President in his very first State of the Nation
Address to draw attention to and emphasise the
importance of the environment, the issue of
sanitation and the lack of it, in my opinion, is a
serious indictment against us as a country and
each one of us as Ghanaians in our continued
inability to maintain something so close to our
sense of worth."

Akufo-Addo

On why, in recent times, he seems to be touting
the positive attributes of President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo, former President Rawlings
intimated: “My statement could not be out of
character with me, but the man has used the force
of conviction and used our own weapon against
us.”

“He is on a moral high ground and we in the NDC
are down. He fought with the force of conviction
and integrity and has beaten us to it. How far is
the NDC prepared to go in reclaiming our high
ground? Now the power mongering and corrupt ones
are trying to sneak in their clutch,” he said.

When a candidate that is starved of funds by even
some of his own past party leadership is able to
beat a well-resourced incumbent, it gives a clear
indication of the force of conviction and the
power of the might of right. If we don’t clean
up, it will be impossible to defeat him,” he
indicated.

Let us stop being forgetful

“ When Nana Akufo-Addo took their 2012 electoral
loss to the Supreme Court and we in the NDC in our
omniscient manner were humiliating his running
mate in the dock, was Nana Akufo-Addo not in court
till the case was over?

“ Juxtapose the loyalty Nana Akufo-Addo
demonstrated to his running mate against Nana
Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings when she was being tried
during the Kufuor regime. How many of us in the
NDC turned up to show solidarity?

“ The 31st December Movement suffered bankruptcy
in supporting Atta Mills. How many of us bothered
to show up in court to offer her moral support in
recognition of the foundation she laid in leading
the women from the PNDC to the NDC? During that
trial, Peter Ala Adjetey, the then Speaker of
Parliament, whose son, NDC’s well-fed Larry
Adjetey, was charged together with my wife,
threatened Kufuor that if he did not drop the
‘false’ charge against his son, he would
personally go to court to defend his son. Kufuor
dropped his charges.

“How many of these qualities of principled
solidarity did we demonstrate towards our own?
Instead, people got rewarded with appointments by
denigrating and trying to destroy some of us. What
money did I not borrow to assist some of our
colleagues and comrades who were suffering
financially under Kufuor’s regime? Those debts
are still on my head today.

“Right and wrong have been held hostage by
partisan politics such that if we do not restore
them to their rightful place, the moral fabric of
our society will continue to degenerate. Let us
hold on to our critical role and still co-exist.

“We’ve all contributed, by omission or
commission, to this massive change. Let’s help
the President to succeed as patriots and push him
out in future elections if we present ourselves as
better alternatives. To wait till we get into
office will inflict untold hardship on the people
of Ghana,” Mr Rawlings asserted.

Being hypocritical

For those who thought he was being hypocritical,
President Rawlings indicated that he had done his
best, both in private and in public, to help
correct the wrongs in the NDC government, all to
no avail.

According to him, the mean-spiritedness that was
the order of the day for some high-ranking
officials when he left office in 2000 got even
worse towards him, his family and some NDC members
after they had fought hard to get the NDC back in
power in 2008.

“Regrettably, many people believe that the depth
of corruption that was inherited from 2008 was
allowed to degenerate leading to ‘our being
whipped out’ in 2016.

“In short, the party that was born out of the
revolution must awaken to its values of probity
and accountability in order to restore its moral
high ground. Isn’t the margin of defeat against
us enough evidence that things had deteriorated?
Instead of concentrating our efforts on defying
the mercenaries, opportunists and hijackers to
rectify and solidify the party, we rather seem to
be focusing on being presidential candidates,”
he said.

Akufo-Addo needs support.

In his view, Nana Akufo-Addo needs the active
support of patriots.

“He needs more than prayers…our active
support. We have to be bold and strong to defy and
rectify. There were some who were doing genuine
business right from Kufuor’s era and continued
to irrespective of change of governments. There
are also those who engaged in corrupt business
practices right from that time and continued to
work with Prof. Mills and Mahama’s people, and
they appear determined to continue in this current
government.

“If we do not use the opportunity presented to
us to override some of these negative forces and
their actions, we would have lost a fine
chance,” President Rawlings advised.

Source - Graphic.com.gh



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