KUFUOR RAWLINGS CROSS SWORDS

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has hit back at his predecessor, Jerry John Rawlings, describing as false an allegation that he (Kufuor) was asked to persuade President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to step down.

Ex-President Rawlings recently granted an interview to a Nigerian newspaper, The Guardian, and claimed that Mr. Kufuor and former President Olusegun Obansanjo of Nigeria were both sent by western leaders to go to Zimbabwe to get Mr. Mugabe to cede power.

But President Kufuor says that allegation was ‘concocted.’

“The Office of Former President John Agyekum Kufuor rejects as untrue and unfounded assertions by former President Jerry John Rawlings that he and former Nigerian President Olusegun Obansanjo were snubbed by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, when two western leaders allegedly sent them there to ask him to step down,” Frank Agyekum, spokesperson for ex-President Kufuor, said in a statement yesterday.

Mr Rawlings was reported to have told The Guardian that Kufuor and Obasanjo were disdainfully spurned by Mr Mugabe when they were sent to talk him (Mugabe) into stepping down.

He is also reported to have stated that western media and governments “whitewashed” the image of Ghana after he left office.

"Not too long after I left office, I was giving a talk in Tanzanian and I said the world was going to see an exponential growth of terrorism. I had left office and the western media and western governments were desperately whitewashing the image of Ghana, in spite of the atrocities and the corruption that were going on in my country after we had left office.

“Ghana had become a captive state, being whitewashed. You see how they orchestrate things? This is what I want you to wake up to. Now, it might interest you to know that while they were whitewashing, making these claims and things were also falling apart, as late as just a few months ago, BBC now claims that terrorism had risen by 84%, creating a false impression at that time. This is the power of the Western media,” Mr Rawlings said.

However, former President Kufuor categorically denied the Mugabe mission with former President Obasanjo and wondered how Rawlings should be the only one to know such a mission, saying “It beats one’s understanding that such an untrue narrative could be concocted.”

Mr Kufuor recounts that at the Commonwealth Heads of State meeting in Nigeria in 2003, the Heads of State were concerned about the heightened political tension in Zimbabwe following the government’s decree to seize white lands for blacks, and requested some of the leaders gathered to intervene to help calm tempers.

“Former Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Obasanjo of Nigeria volunteered to go on the mission,” the statement indicated.

“I was never part of such an endeavour, and it is disappointing that former President Rawlings, who must know the facts, will add my name to it after all these years,” the statement also asserted.

Mr. Kufuor also denied claim by Mr. Rawlings that Ghana, under the New Patriotic Party (NPP), became a ‘captive state’ that was “whitewashed by western media and western governments, in spite of the atrocities and the corruption that were going on.”

According to the statement, President Rawlings is not the only living Ghanaian during the administration of President Kufuor, and therefore he cannot rewrite history for Ghanaians.

It said President Kufuor insists that whatever commendations his government received were deserved and based on the results-oriented approach that was brought to bear on governance during the eight years of the NPP rule.

“It is becoming one too many. President Rawlings must leave President Kufuor alone. If he wants to stand on the rooftops to proclaim his sainthood, he has all the right to do so without mentioning President Kufuor’s name in his sanctimonious proclamations,” the statement said, adding that “the records are there; historical, statistical, economic and social records, for all well-meaning Ghanaians to compare and contrast.”

The statement further said, “The achievements of President Kufuor’s government during his eight-year tenure were without denying any soul their human rights as citizens, and without a single blood being shed or a single political prisoner created.”

“President Kufuor’s era has been acclaimed as an era of economic growth with marked expansion in personal freedoms to the envy of even some of the Asian Tigers of current times. Ghanaians are the best judges of the eight-year record of President Kufuor and the 19-year record of President Rawlings. Let history judge the two periods of Ghana’s stewardship, and not President Rawlings as the referee.”