From left: Mohammed Uthman, Brogya Genfi and Joseph Yammin listening to Jerry John Rawlings
Former President Rawlings has dashed the hopes of members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) who have asked him to help President Atta Mills to win a second term.
Fallouts from last Saturday’s acrimonious congress left many supporters, especially core members of the NDC, wondering whether Mr. Rawlings, founder of the party, would abandon them in the face of the humiliation he suffered at the venue for the NDC congress, during which his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings suffered an electoral defeat.
But he was reported to have told a group of party members, led by Ashanti Regional Secretary of the party Joseph Yamin, who called on him at his Ridge office on Tuesday, that he was not prepared to follow “cowards to war” since they would leave him to die alone on the battlefield.
The group, which included recently-sacked Public Relations Officer of the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council (RCC), who is also spokesperson for NDC youth in the region, Ernest Brogya Gyenfi, and Mohammed Uthman, a member of the Ashanti Regional youth working committee of the party, raced to Mr. Rawlings upon hearing rumours that he intended to leave the party because of unfolding events in the NDC.
Asked what Mr. Rawlings’s response was, Brogya Gyenfi, who was part of the meeting, told DAILY GUIDE, “He said he wasn’t leaving NDC but made an emphatic statement that he wasn’t going to campaign for Professor Mills and that he will not fight or follow cowards to war because if you follow cowards to war, you will end up fighting alone”.
However, he said Mr. Rawlings gave them the impression that he was prepared to campaign for some of the party’s parliamentarians.
They therefore impressed upon the former President to stay in the party and continue to be critical of political developments, as he had always done.
A statement issued after the meeting said, “We spent time discussing the acts of irregularity and intimidation calculated to create a comfortable passageway for one candidate at the expense of the other and spoke about the deliberate locking of the core supporters of the party out of the congress grounds even though there was enough space to accommodate the supporters who had nominated delegates to vote on their behalf.
“In the end, only delegates were allowed in while there was a huge presence of heavily-armed military, police and plain-clothed security personnel within and outside the congress grounds, creating an atmosphere of fear,” the statement said.
For members of the group, what was worrying was how Ministers, Ambassadors and other government appointees allegedly tele-guided the delegates and other observers to ignore the former President and Nana Konadu when they arrived at the congress grounds.
As soon as the Rawlingses arrived at the congress ground, the meeting was called to prayers, an action seen as pre-planned to drum down the usual euphoria which their presence attracts at such conferences, they said.
As if that was not enough, they noted, “they also took turns to hoot at the candidate when she was on the floor delivering her speech”, describing those actions as offensive and obscene.
The group contended that “when the entire government machinery is commandeered to publicly abuse the founder of the party and his wife and create the impression that they have no relevance in the party, very dangerous cords are touched.”
Describing Rawlings as the ‘umbilical cord’ of the NDC, members of the group stressed their commitment to work with Mr. Rawlings to save the party from detractors within and without.
The former President was said to have been very receptive to their concerns and expressed gratitude for their efforts.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
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