RECONCILING POLITICAL FACTIONS: IT`S NOW OR NEVER!

Mr. Kofi Annan, the son of Ghana who hoisted the United Nations flag, making Africa proud, returned home Tuesday night to a tumultuous welcome.

Wednesday saw him at the seat of Government, The Castle, for a formal welcome by President John Agyekum Kufuor, with former Vice-President John Evans Atta Mills and other politicians in attendance.

Significantly, that Wednesday, January 24 turned out to be the first time the former Vice President was visiting the Castle since leaving office on January 7, 2001. It is heartwarming that Mr. Annan's return has occasioned that revisit, which saw the President in a chat with the former Veep, which was captured by the lenses of the media.

After a hard time, striving to restore peace in war-torn countries and calming tensions in troubled areas of the world, Mr. Annan, described in some circles as the 'secular Pope' deserves a well-earned rest.

So he returns home with a clear mission in mind that, for him, 'rest' would be when his people have food sufficiency and security and therefore his mind is made up to go into farming to achieve this.

The irony of it all is that whilst he was out there promoting world peace, he should have served as a living example, particularly for us Ghanaians. Instead, over here, our political leaders in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and those of the leading minority party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have had an undeclared war of attrition between them, raising the political temperature at various times.

Unfortunately, these adults would not learn from the example of children, forgiving each other and working together for the progress and development of their country.

So, even though the man who has been the world's number one diplomat is here to rest, by helping to feed the nation, everybody is looking up to him to reconcile leading political opponents, in a country that has posited to the whole world that it has undergone a national reconciliation exercise and therefore wounds and hurt feelings have been healed.

We have gone full circle and have not succeeded in deceiving anybody.

The Chronicle does not believe that there is anything that the nation's illustrious son can do, to reconcile these adults in conflict, which has not been tried.

Perhaps, all parties, knowing that Mr. Annan is uncontaminated by the pettiness that has characterised our domestic politics would be able to bring his influence to bear in lowering the political temperature of the country.

We have no doubt that if the protagonists refuse to co-operate, Mr. Annan would have nothing to lose. Our leaders would only have succeeded in exposing their pettiness to the wider world.
It is now or never!