John Atta Mills Has Left Ghana A Challenging Legacy By Cameron Duodu

Feature Article John Atta Mills Has Left Ghana A Challenging Legacy By Cameron Duodu

SAT, 28 JUL 2012

Before his death, there was much dissatisfaction with the president – now a new man has to try to hold the nation together.

'Death has enabled John Atta Mills to hand over the headache of rehabilitating public amenities to the new president.' Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images

The outpouring of grief that has gripped Ghana following the death of President John Atta Mills this week was so great it would have surprised the man himself were he in a position to see it.

There have been numerous anecdotes on how humanitarian he was. And even his former boss, ex-president Jerry Rawlings, described Mills as “the finest”. Rawlings revealed that Mills died from cancer and intimated that had Mills been “more wisely” advised, he would have avoided campaigning for the elections scheduled for December 2012, as the cancer had affected “his throat and eyes”.

Rawlings, though, had made no secret of his desire that Mills should step down in favour of his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, as the candidate of the ruling National Democratic Congress in the December 2012 election. The NDC was founded by Rawlings when he needed to transform himself from a military ruler (1981-1992) into a civilian president (1992-2000), but Mills eventually took control of the party.

On one occasion, while recoiling from criticism by Rawlings that his government was so incompetent that it should be classified as a “Team B” government, Mills reminded Rawlings: “There is only one president in Ghana.”

Nevertheless, even though Rawlings had an axe to grind, dissatisfaction with Mills's performance was real enough among the populace. Although the start of petroleum production has increased the country's gross national product, very little of this has trickled down to the people.

According to the World Bank, Ghana's GDP grew by 14% in 2011. But power shortages and the lack of water, even in urban areas, provoke people to ask “where is this growth?”

And Ghanaians have recently discovered, to their shock, that state revenue can be shared between politicians and their cronies – by the simple act of government lawyers knowingly refusing to defend the state in court when contractors make fraudulent claims against it. In one case now before the courts, a contractor and two government lawyers are charged with concocting a “judgment debt” from a lawsuit, in which the state was made to pay the contractor about £20m.

Those angered by this include the unemployed, whose ranks are being swelled by young new graduates, and the parents in rural areas whose children have to attend school under the shade of trees. Also, health facilities are so unsatisfactory that Mills often went to America or South Africa to obtain treatment.

Death has enabled him to hand over the headache of rehabilitating public amenities to the new president, John Dramani Mahama. However,Mahama's own immediate concerns will revolve more around how he manages to meet the challenge posed by the Rawlings family than around national policies.

Already, there is a great deal of acrimony in the struggle between the NDC and the New Patriotic party over the December election. That is because they are evenly matched in the polls: the December 2008 election, for instance, was won by Mills by a few thousand votes.

Mahama has only five months to prove that he can hold the country – and his party – tightly together. He would have wished, though, that he'd been given the task at a more auspicious time.

Martin Cameron Duodu is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.. More Martin Cameron Duodu (born 24 May 1937) is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.

Education
Duodu was born in Asiakwa in eastern Ghana and educated at Kyebi Government Senior School and the Rapid Results College, London , through which he took his O-Level and A-Level examinations by correspondence course . He began writing while still at school, the first story he ever wrote ("Tough Guy In Town") being broadcast on the radio programme The Singing Net and subsequently included in Voices of Ghana , a 1958 anthology edited by Henry Swanzy that was "the first Ghanaian literary anthology of poems, stories, plays and essays".

Early career
Duodu was a student teacher in 1954, and worked on a general magazine called New Nation in Ghana, before going on to become a radio journalist for the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation from 1956 to 1960, becoming editor of radio news <8> (moonlighting by contributing short stories and poetry to The Singing Net and plays to the programme Ghana Theatre). <9> From 1960 to 1965 he was editor of the Ghana edition of the South African magazine Drum , <10> and in 1970 edited the Daily Graphic , <3> the biggest-selling newspaper in Ghana.< citation needed >

The Gab Boys (1967) and creative writing
In 1967, Duodu's novel The Gab Boys was published in London by André Deutsch . The "gab boys" of the title – so called because of their gabardine trousers – are the sharply dressed youths who hang about the village and are considered delinquent by their elders. The novel is the story of the adventures of one of them, who runs away from village life, eventually finding a new life in the Ghana capital of Accra . According to one recent critic, "Duodu simultaneously represents two currents in West African literature of the time, on the one hand the exploration of cultural conflict and political corruption in post-colonial African society associated with novelists and playwrights such as Chinua Achebe and Ama Ata Aidoo , and on the other hand the optimistic affirmation of African cultural strengths found in poets of the time such as David Diop and Frank Kobina Parkes . These themes come together in a very compassionate discussion of the way that individual people, rich and poor, are pushed to compromise themselves as they try to navigate a near-chaotic transitional society."

In June 2010 Duodu was a participant in the symposium Empire and Me: Personal Recollections of Imperialism in Reality and Imagination, held at Cumberland Lodge , alongside other speakers who included Diran Adebayo , Jake Arnott , Margaret Busby , Meira Chand , Michelle de Kretser , Nuruddin Farah , Jack Mapanje , Susheila Nasta , Jacob Ross , Marina Warner , and others.

Duodu also writes plays and poetry. His work was included in the anthology Messages: Poems from Ghana ( Heinemann Educational Books , 1970).

Other activities and journalism
Having worked as a correspondent for various publications in the decades since the 1960s, including The Observer , The Financial Times , The Sunday Times , United Press International , Reuters , De Volkskrant ( Amsterdam ), and The Economist , Duodu has been based in Britain as a freelance journalist since the 1980s. He has had stints with the magazines South and Index on Censorship , and has written regularly for outlets such as The Independent and The Guardian .

He is the author of the blog "Under the Neem Tree" in New African magazine (London), and has also published regular columns in The Mail and Guardian ( Johannesburg ) and City Press (Johannesburg), as well as writing a weekly column for the Ghanaian Times (Accra) for many years.< citation needed >

Duodu has appeared frequently as a contributor on BBC World TV and BBC World Service radio news programmes discussing African politics, economy and culture.

He contributed to the 2014 volume Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochukwu Promise.Column: Cameron Duodu

Disclaimer: "The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect ModernGhana official position. ModernGhana will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here." Follow our WhatsApp channel for meaningful stories picked for your day.

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John Atta Mills Has Left Ghana A Challenging Legacy By Cameron Duodu

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