I Don’t Need JJ – Says Mills

President Mills and members of his campaign team, most of whom are government Ministers and national executives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), seem to have given up any hopes of former President Rawlings joining them in the campaign for the 2012 general elections.

Details have started emerging of a crunch meeting between the leadership of the party and the President at the Peduase Lodge, a Presidential facility located off the Accra-Aburi road last Friday, where the President was said to have said that he could win this year's presidential polls with or without Mr. Rawlings being part of the campaign team.

Though attempts to speak to the Communications Director at the Presidency, Koku Anyidoho on the issue proved futile because he failed to answer calls to his phone, other sources close to the Presidency told DAILY GUIDE that the meeting was to fashion out ways to win the 2012 general elections.

But the meeting seemed to have been divided between those who wanted President Mills to eat the humble pie and make amends with Jerry Rawlings and another group that believed Mills could go into the election on his own credentials.

The issue was said to have dragged on for a while until the President dropped what had been described by some members of the party hierarchy as a 'bombshell'.

According to the source, President Mills appeared not to be prepared to make amends with the powerful and influential Mr. Rawlings, his former boss and political mentor.

President Mills was reported to have said that he wanted nothing to do with neither Mr. Rawlings nor his wife Nana Konadu, as he (Mills) was a 'winnable candidate'.

But the leadership of the Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (FONKAR), a splinter group within the NDC with links and unflinching support for the Rawlingses, said 'we have no doubt that this decision by the President is a product of ill advice from the same sycophants, flatterers and ingrates who are bent on taking the NDC into opposition and destroying the Rawlings legacy for their own parochial interests.'

A statement issued by the group and signed by its coordinator, Emmanuel Saint Osei, said, 'It is no longer in doubt that the cracks of division within our great party, the NDC, have deepened to almost unbearable proportions,' noting that 'the leader who has the ultimate responsibility to resolve these issues is himself perpetuating this division.'

According to them, actions taken by President Mills since he assumed office 'indicates his deliberate orchestration of the demise of the NDC.'

That, they said, was evident in the fact that President Mills had shunned any event that celebrated the history of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

They noted that 'the current turn of events in the NDC where allegations of corruption, lack of accountability in governance have been levelled against government officials, leaves much to be desired and falls short of the ideals and values which form the bedrock of the party since its inception.'

From the onset of the Mills administration, the statement said, 'our founder J.J. Rawlings, and Nana Konadu, in consultation with the grassroots, have independently offered constructive criticisms, and suggested solutions to restore the NDC's reputation'.

That notwithstanding, the Konadu die-hards noted, 'the President has distanced himself from our founder J.J. Rawlings, while refusing to heed the advice of the very person who secured his 2008 general election victory.

'With more and more allegations of corruption further tainting the Mills Administration, it brings into question Mills's ability to be what he himself terms a 'winnable' candidate for the NDC,' it stressed.

The group noted that 'as NDC party disunity is apparent now more than ever at the grassroots, it has become ever clearer that the Sunyani Congress was representative of a struggle between those who stand for the true values of the NDC and for its preservation as opposed to those who believe in bad governance, corruption and the ultimate destruction of the NDC'.

They therefore stressed that 'these issues of corruption, obvious mismanagement and lack of accountability by the Mills government and some party executives are sinking the NDC ship, leaving the grassroots despondent and without the determination to campaign for their own party for the 2012 election'.

It stated, 'We remain resolute in our stance to defend the truth, and to preserve and protect the core values of our founder J.J. Rawlings, on which the NDC party was founded.'

By Charles Takyi-Boadu