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By the time Nana Konadu
wakes up to reality…
By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Folks, Nana Konadu says that she has had the worst Christmas
experience, not because the NDC government has failed to
satisfy her but because of the death of her mother. (See
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/I-wept-on-Christmas-day-Rawlings-403693).
Oyiwa!! The death of a dear one is traumatizing; not so?
Has she ever paused to wonder how survivors or living
victims of the political force led by her husband have coped
with life over the period? It’s a reality check coming to
her in the nadir of her political life. A serious case for
analysis of human affairs, my good friends.
Folks, I have been very much insistent in condemning Nana
Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings for all that she has become in the
Ghanaian political arena. As the longest-serving First Lady
of this country, manipulating the fortunes of the 31st
December Women’s Movement (that she didn’t form but managed
to appropriate to political and personal advantage), and
ascending the height as the 1st National Vice Chair of the
NDC, she should be counted as a very lucky woman of means.
Not only that. She survived the vicissitudes of whatever
happened in the dastardly abduction and murder of the three
High Court Judges in 1982 (first because it was her official
vehicle that was commandeered by Amedeka and Co. for the
operation; and second because the Justice Crabbe Special
Investigations Board didn’t find any evidence to pin her
down as a direct accomplice or perpetrator of that crime).
Nana Konadu reigned supreme within the period, emerging as
the First Lady that Ghana hadn’t seen before or expected to
be so overweening and overpowering. Those of us who got
close to her as she cut her paths on the political terrain
aren’t dead to that reality. She doesn’t know us for what we
are, but we know her for all that we did to secure her and
make her feel that she is the be-it-all-and-end-it-all at
the end of the tunnel. But she isn’t it.
Wind back the hand of the clock to those days and you’d see
Nana Konadu behind everything that some represented in
Ghanaian politics. Let’s give her the credit for championing
that cause and leading a delegation to the international
conference on “Affirmative Action”. But at the end of it
all, what happened? Especially when Rawlings’ era came to an
end and the test began for the real stuff of which the
pro-Rawlings adherents were made of?
Nana Konadu’s loss of the bid to lead the NDC to Election
2008 set her off on a spiral from which she hasn’t recovered
to date and won’t recover for as long as she remains bloated
with revenge against those she sees as her nemesis. We know
of how her bitterness against the late Atta Mills even
prevented her from attending his memorial service and burial
ceremony.
Not only that. She has carried that bitterness along with
her to the most bizarre extent as to split from the NDC (the
very incubator of her political ambitions) to spearhead the
efforts of the amorphous NDP with one gladiatorial purpose
of goring the NDC out of Ghanaian politics. Need we talk
about her claims to have been the creator of the NDC emblem
and the desire to divest the party of it? Or many other
instances of glaring predation? Too disheartening. But she
failed.
More unsettling for her, she lost the bid to contest the
2012 elections because the EC disqualified her for not being
able to meet standards. She went ballistics but wouldn’t
change her own dynamics apart from spiraling toward the NPP
and its Akufo-Addo that she had spent resources undermining.
When the dogs start eating back their own vomit, they set
themselves up for scrutiny.
So has it been for Nana Konadu. We know of the family
problems that have so far unsettled her, even if she has
maintained a straight face and pretended to be weathering
the storm. Rawlings himself has withdrawn to the background,
which raises eyebrows but confirms long-held suspicions that
Nana Konadu is such a prime-mover in the affairs of the
Rawlingses as not to be challenged without dreadful
consequences. She is the SHE that must be obeyed!!
Okay for her. Unfortunately, when it comes to the operations
of Nature, nothing is ever Okay for human beings. So it is
that her mother has passed on. We know how attached Konadu
was to her mom, even rushing to seek shelter with her when
the Ridge residence of the Rawlingses got burnt beyond
recovery.
All along, she has acted like a woman with a “man’s heart”
to soak up the pressure; but the death of her mother seems
to be revealing all that there is to know about her. She is
telling Ghanaians today that she has had a dreadful
Christmas season this year because of the passing away of
her mother just because she has had no “shelter” to rely on.
Interesting. The Nigerian musician, Prince Nico Mbarga and
his group have already attuned Ghanaians to the relevance of
“Sweet Mother”. So, after all, Nana Konadu has human
feelings?
Folks, the above question needs to be situated because it is
foundational to all the perceptions about the Rawlingses as
“murderers” and “opportunists” who abused the Ghanaian
system to establish themselves in coziness at the expense of
those whose businesses and lives they cut short. Don’t get
me wrong. The advent of the Rawlingses has a long tortuous
history to be interpreted, depending on who is doing the
interpretation. The truth, though, is that Nana Konadu is
fingered as a bad influence on Rawlings. For some time now,
Rawlings has been in the shadows while she is in the
limelight, saying horrible things about President Mahama and
his government and creating the negative impression that an
NPP government will serve better purposes. Yet, this is one
woman who has sacrificed her lot to work against the NPP.
So, what must be happening? What is it that has made her
desert the comfort of her NDC home for that of the NPP,
especially the Akufo-Addo that she had loudly condemned as
not being a qualified lawyer?
And why would she quickly swallow her own vomit at the time
that she chose to hate President Mahama and the NDC and turn
to Akufo-Addo as her safe haven? Such a Jezebel in our time
is death-on-wheels to be avoided. Can she tell us who
founded the NDP that she is leading? And why she is the hen
eating her own eggs (especially if we juxtapose her
daughter, Dr. Zanetor’s political quests against her
damaging political intrigues, even though Rawlings is all
out to support her ambitions)? Why is Nana Konadu so bitter?
All those who worked with her in the hey-days of the
December 31 Women’s Movement have become her foes. The same
applies to Rawlings too. Why are their long-time friends now
their foes? Why are they not able to retain friendships at
the political level? Why is the opportunistic Herbert Mensah
also now their bitter foe? What exactly is wrong with the
Rawlingses?
There is a lot to ponder over. But the truth is that Nana
Konadu is gradually coming to terms with reality that life
is precious and must be protected. That is why her claiming
to have been devastated by the death of her mother and for
not enjoying Christmas as she thought she would should be
placed in context and analyzed. Who really cares about her
now? I don’t. If you do, then, it is your responsibility to
find out from her why the death of all others caused by her
husband’s government of “probity and accountability” doesn’t
matter as much as that of her mother in the peace of her
home.
These are issues that the NPP people who led campaigns of
calumny against the Rawlingses should be interrogating
before rushing headlong into alliances with them in the
mistaken belief that once they get the green light from the
Rawlingses as political allies they will be thumb-printed to
rule Ghana. There is a lot of mischief here that the
Ghanaian voter will quickly see through before making
his/her electoral decision. As the situation stands now, any
mindless appreciation of issues will send the NPP people
into a tailspin from which they will not recover until
Election 2020. No more!!
I shall return…
• E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com
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to continue the conversation
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