Thursday, November 18, 2010

NANA KONADU WILL NOT RUN — Rawlings (PAGE 12, NOV 15, 2010)

Former President, Flt Lt. Rawlings has re-affirmed that he is not interested in ruling the nation again neither is his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings.
“Rawlings is not interested in the Professor’s seat neither is my wife. I have held that seat for 18 years during which we worked very hard in transforming this country.”
He explained that he was only calling for fairness and justice in the affairs of the nation and that, “we will be living in the world of self denial if we do not face the reality.”
The former President explained that his constant criticisms of the Mill’s administration was not borne out of malice neither was it about washing the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party’s dirty linen in public but as truths that needed to be told to guide the ruling government to perfection in fulfilling its better Ghana mantra.
He was speaking at the funeral of the late Northern Regional chairman of the NDC, Alhaji Sumani Zakari in Tamale at the weekend.
He indicated that even though the final funeral rite of the deceased was next week Sunday, he decided to call on the family earlier because he was likely not to be in the country at that time.
He made a cash donation of GH¢1000 and five bags of maize to the family.
The former President had earlier paid courtesy calls on some chiefs and opinion leaders in the Tamale metropolis since his arrival in the area last Friday.
He had also visited the flood victims at Buipe in the Central Gonja district on his way to Tamale to console them and to learn at first hand the level of destruction caused by the floods.
The late chairman died on November 8th at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital at the age of 75 after a protracted illness. He has since been buried in Tamale according to Islamic custom.
Flt Lt. Rawlings described the late chairman as a man of courage who had contributed immensely to the socio-political development of the northern region and the nation and that even though Alhaji Zakaria was not perfect; he did his best for mother Ghana.
The former President advised the family of the deceased to remain steadfast and not to allow themselves to be divided over the properties of their husband and father.
He equally admonished the party executive in the region, particularly the vice chairman of the NDC, Sofo Azorka to endeavour to consult the party elders before arriving at decisions and urged them to ensure unity at all times until a successor was duly elected.
According to Flt Lt. Rawlings, his private advises to the government to institute in depth investigations into alleged corrupt practices by the Kufuor administration, electoral frauds in the 2004 and 2008 general elections and the prosecutions of both private and security personnel among other issues have all not been heeded to for which reasons he sometimes had to go public.
He contended that President Mills’ failure to institute investigations into what he called electoral frauds by the NPP means, “you are telling the world that the NPP is as strong as you are when they are indeed weak.”
Flt Lt. Rawlings described the prevailing economic hardships in the country as legacies of former President Kufuor’s corrupt and misrule regime.
He also chastised a section of the media for what he termed as misinformation and the distortion of vital information and stressed that he had always stood for the truth and fairness which he said were his principles.
Touching on the Ya-Na and Alhaji Issah Mobilla’s murder cases which are all on trial in the law court, Mr Rawlings called for their speedy adjudication and further investigations into those cases to ensure unity since “there can never be unity without justice.”
He described those behind the murder of the Dagbon Overlord as professional killers and alleged that the Wuaku Commission’s sittings and subsequent report were only a cover-up.
“And when I am calling for justice for the Ya-Na it is not because he is an Andani or Abudu because I do not know one from the other since I have worked with both of them,” the former President said and that he would have done same if it was an Abudu chief or the common man on the street.
According to him, if justice was not instituted in those matters, “their capacities to kill and kill again would happen if they get the chance again,” he indicated.

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