Jerry Rawlings Must Grow Up

The General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Nana Ohene Ntow has shrugged off recent aspirations and vituperations issued by former President Rawlings describing them as an attempt to sour the good relations between Ghana and the international community. Reacting to some accusations the former President made against President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the USA and UK respectively, the General Secretary claimed that the ex-President was only being childish, adding “Rawlings should settle down as an elderly statesman”.

Nana Ntow who has vowed to continually issue proper responses to comments made by Mr. Rawlings, questioned how he (Rawlings) had suddenly turned against the international community and foreign Presidents whom he had dealt with whilst he was Head of State and President of the country.

He recalled the cordial relations that existed between the former President and President Bill Clinton who was obviously one of his closest allies, saying that “Clinton said a lot of good things about Rawlings that suggested that he supported Rawlings' regime”. “So what happens between Ghana and America, is it because it is no longer Clinton therefore the relationship between Ghana and the U.S has to take another turn”, he questioned.

According to him, the PNDC and NDC continued to enjoy the financial, diplomatic and political support from America and did not feel then that somebody was after Rawlings' blood. He suggested to the former President to rather contribute positively to the development of the country than adopting a paranoiac attitude and a syndrome of hate.

He distanced the NPP from any attempt to pursue the life of the former President. According to him, it was important for the former president and his cohorts to come to terms with the fact that a new government was steering the affairs of the country even though they do not support the NPP. The NPP General Secretary said that the effusions of Mr. Rawlings coincided with President Kufuor's visit to America which yielded the US commitment to support the Millennium Challenge Account for Ghana.

These effusions, he said, could easily be interpreted as an attempt to unnecessarily prejudice the mind of the U.S. government and to change its position of goodwill towards Ghana. “Rawlings must grow beyond these things, he is not serving his image any good purpose and he better stop the campaign of courting ill-will for the whole nation. It does not do anything good for his image and that of his party”, Ntow said.