By William
Yaw Owusu
Wednesday
May 16, 2018
It has emerged that former President Jerry John
Rawlings did not attend the conference of former metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives
(MMDCEs) who served under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC)
government.
According to a source,
he
did not want to share a platform with immediate past President John Dramani Mahama.
DAILY
GUIDE has been informed that the whole programme, organized
by the former MMDCEs, appeared to have been sponsored by the camp of former
President Mahama as part of his so-called ‘unity walk’ strategy; and as a
result, Mr. Rawlings - founder of the NDC - was not fully convinced about the
motive and so was being ‘tactful’ in the scheme of things.
Although the opposition party is yet to open
nominations for presidential hopefuls towards the 2020 elections, Mr. Mahama - who
sent the NDC crashing out of power in 2016 - has hit the ground running with
his ‘unity walk’strategy.
He said he is yet to declare whether he will become
the NDC flagbearer and give the presidency a third shot, but his fiery speeches
were reminiscent of a candidate in a campaign mood.
DAILY
GUIDE has learnt that the ex-president is expected to
announce his candidature in the last lap of the ‘unity walk,’ which has been
described as ‘Mahama walk’ in the Volta Region.
Mr. Rawlings was invited to speak at a ‘solidarity
meeting’at Mensvic Hotel in Accra last Saturday, but sources say he allegedly
refused to show up and rather asked one of his longtime NDC allies, Samuel
Nuamah-Donkor, to represent him.
“In an apparent show of indifference, Mr. Rawlings, who
was initially prepared to attend the event, refused to step at the venue of the
meeting after being informed that Mr. Mahama was attending,” the source
claimed. It added, “He (Rawlings) subsequently reluctantly nominated Mr. Samuel
Nuamah Donkor to read a speech on his behalf after he was prevailed upon by his
handlers.”
Mr Rawlings similarly ignored Mr. Mahama at the
first State of the Nation Address delivered by President Akufo-Addo in
Parliament, and only offered a cold handshake at the commemoration of the
silver jubilee of the 4th Republic at the Black Star Square in
Accra.
The source indicated that it appeared the party’s
founder had not forgiven Mr. Mahama and some of his henchmen for the apparent
trashy treatment they meted out to him and his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings,
during Mahama’s presidency.
President Rawlings has not hidden his intention to call
for a new direction for the NDC since he said the Mills/Mahama government lost
the ‘moral high ground’ and accused them, especially, Mr. Mahama and his
appointees, of being corrupt.
In 2016, he told the NDC at a congress that he was
waiting to take the party back and re-organize it by January 2017, suggesting
that he did not think the then ruling NDC was going to win the December 2016 general
election, and it indeed happened.
In the speech read on his behalf at the MMDCEs’
conference, the NDC founder said, among other things that, even if the
opposition NDC is keeping the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government on its toes,
it is failing woefully to put its house in order ahead of the 2020 general
election and beyond.
Mr. Rawlings said recent happenings in the NDC were
showing that the party he founded is heavily divided and until they resolve
their differences, they can’t win power.
According to him, the party is not
unified, not in touch with the grassroots and did not inspire confidence in the
electorate during the run-up to the last election and called on the party to
re-embrace its core values of truth, integrity, probity and
accountability.
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