Mahama Partied Over Mills’ Death

He may very well not have participated in the curious and mysterious circumstances that precipitated the death of then-President John Evans Atta-Mills. However, as the latter’s Vice-President and the second most powerful man of the land at the time, the speech/address made by Mr. John Dramani Mahama announcing the passing of his immediate boss and the substantive President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana, was heavily laced with the sort of celebratory tenor that often accompanies the passing of one’s archnemesis. This is the “circumstantial evidence” that has been widely alluded to for over seven years now, and which continues to inexorably dog the man who, as mandated by Ghana’s 1992 Republican Constitution, stepped in/up to serve the remaining five months that were left of the tenure of President John Evans Atta-Mills.

He is not really going after Mr. Kwame Baffoe, the Bono Region’s Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). What former President John Dramani Mahama is actually doing through his personal and party lawyer, Mr. Anthony “Tony” Lithur, is to enable the national security apparatus of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) get to the very bottom of this lingering and nagging and running national security sore once and for all. He may very well not have had absolutely any hand in the death of the late President Atta-Mills, but it cannot also be gainsaid that the then-Vice-President John Dramani Mahama had a bounden obligation to let Ghanaians know precisely under what set of circumstances Mr. Mahama’s immediate boss had met his Maker, as it were.

Wantonly and cavalierly celebrating the seismic passing of the then-Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), as if his was the patently insignificant passing of the family pet, even the favorite family pet, is inescapably what is at issue here. Even assuming that Mr. Mahama had absolutely no hand in the set of circumstances leading to the death of Prof. Mills, and the curious conveyance of the mortal remains of Ghana’s substantive President at the time to the Maternity Ward of the 37^th Military Hospital, as widely reported by the media, still the then-Vice-President of Ghana had a bounden obligation to apprise the entire nation of what actually happened here. As their President, Prof. Atta-Mills was the foremost public figure in the country. Thus, making a secret out of the circumstances that led to his death was definitely not an option.

There is absolutely nothing “irreverent” about the imperative need to get at the bottom of the circumstances surrounding the death of President Mills, contrary to the claim and assertion of Mr. Lithur, the Mahama lawyer. To be certain, about the only “irreverent” thing about the death of President Mills, was the apparent decision by a secretive cabal within the top-hierarchy membership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to keep the deceased President’s death a closely-guarded secret. There is also absolutely nothing abnormal or lunatic about the soundly responsible and healthily inquisitive mind of Abronye DC, aka Mr. Kwame Baffoe, in particular the latter’s quite plausible and credible suggestion that the late President John Evans Atta-Mills very likely met with foul play.

This is precisely why veteran journalists like yours truly had been staunchly in support of the Freedom-of-Information activist battle from day one. The Ghanaian people have an inalienable constitutional right to know the cause of death of the man they personally went to the polling booth to offer their governance mandate. It should not be the closely-guarded secret of some three or four Atta-Mills clansmen or associates who prefer to capriciously nurture the at once curious and bizarre bragging rights of having been the most trusted and intimate associates of the Dead President. Whatever Section of any Act that stands to enable Ghanaians and the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service get to the bottom of what killed President Mills is all that matters at this point.

On the question of whether, indeed, the Mahama Posse has prepared a hit list of some key operatives of the ruling New Patriotic Party that the NDC’s apparatchiks desire to eliminate from Ghanaian society and political culture can be readily and speedily ascertained by both the CID of the GPS and the greater National Security Apparatus in absolutely no time.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
May 9, 2020
E-mail: [email protected]