CONDOLENCE MESSAGE FOLLOWING PRESIDENT MILLS' DEATH FROM AGC GHANA OFFICE

We received with chewed up sadness, the news of the death of His Excellency President John Evans Atta Mills; former President of the Republic of Ghana. This sad and shocking event occurred on Tuesday, July 24, 2012.

In a country in mourning and before a world in shock, the Association of Global Citizens-Ghana (AGC-GHANA) a subsidiary of the Association of World Citizens profoundly remembers a congratulatory and a call to action message, addressed to His Excellency and sent to the Presidency by our organization's Office to the United Nations in Geneva, and transmitted an undercover copy on January 20th 2009, to the Ghana Mission at the United Nations in New York. The said message admonished His Excellency, the President to as a matter of importance take all necessary steps to unite the country after the closely contested general elections that brought His Excellency to power on the 7th January 2009; as the United Nations has then declared the year 2009 as an International Year of Reconciliation. This was as a result of a recommendation made by our organization's Country Lead for Ghana.

In this bid, our late President did his utmost best to continue in the path of his predecessors to hold together a country which Freedom and Justice is its ultimate inheritance and until his untimely death left for us, we the people, a Ghana in peace not in pieces. This we hope to continue in the process of deepening our democratic culture.

There is a temptation to rush to canonize the memory of our late President. There is no need to do so. Our late President stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities not to need to be seen as a saint. Indeed to sanctify the memory of our late President would be to miss out on the very core of his being, his wonderful sense of humor with the laugh that bent him double, his joy for life transmitted wherever he took his smile, and the sparkle in those unforgettable eyes, his boundless energy which he could barely contain till his last breath.

We have all despaired at our loss as a country, over the past week as we continue in our preparation to lay our former President to a befitting rest. But only the strength of the message he gave us through his years of living and giving has afforded us the strength to move forward as a nation with a common destiny.

We at the AGC-GHANA consider the achievements of this noble son of Ghana, of Africa and of humankind, as a great legacy, which is worthy of honor.

Even as we mourn our late President, we wish our new President, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama well as he takes over the leadership of our nation. We trust that the Ghanaian people will rally behind President John Dramani Mahama in this difficult time in the history of our nation. We solemnly ask for God's guidance and much more for his leadership of this great nation.

Again, we extend our heartfelt condolences to the blood family of our late President. God bless our homeland Ghana in these trying times of our unprecedented loss, which we pray to the creator and ask for his little mercies of a 'Never Again'!

Signed:

Stephen Hicks Acheampong
Country Lead
AGC - GHANA.