RESIGNATION OF OFFICE HOLDERS

News Analysis

President Mills bemoans insults directed at his administration

Speaking at the commissioning of the Accra-Tema railway line in Tema on Thursday, President John Atta-Mills bemoaned the insults he said were being hauled at his administration.

President Mills said these insults would rather hamper the development of the country.

President Mills was right, but why now?

He was saying this at the opening of the Accra Tema railway line which was started by the Kufuor regime.

President Mills promised that his NDC regime would continue projects started by the Kufuor administration.

But not so fast. Just recently President Kufuor spoke to the local media about the attempt to diminish his achievements by the current administration.

Activities and statements by the NDC regime against Kufuor for the past year and more seem to support the latter’s complaint.

As President Mills spoke at the Accra-Tema railway opening, in a self absorbed and self centered way, he seemed to have forgotten about these various attacks on Kufuor and his administration by NDC officials and quasi-officials.

“My brothers and sisters when you switch on our TVs, or our radio, you will think that Ghana is at war. Many of us are engaged in politics of insults…[but] insults will not help us to produce…water, insults will not create jobs, insults will not bring about the peace and harmony that we need to develop,” the president was quoted on JoyOnLine.com.

He went on to state how countries all over the world have developed confidence in Ghana and were willing to extend help in the form of loans to Ghana. And that these insults would be impediment to further loans.

How we got to the confidence stage with foreign nations was not explained by our esteemed president. Could former President Kufuor have contributed?

But, loans, and confidence? It appeared at the time the president spoke he had also forgotten that changing the name Golden Jubilee House to Flag Staff House was a slap in the face of, therefore, an insult to our former President John Agyekum Kufuor.

Another level of insult to consider is how this change would impact India, the nation that gave the loan, in reality a gift, for building a presidential palace they thought would be named Golden Jubilee House. Shall we say "to hell with what the Indians think" now?

So political insults to President Kufuor, the former president whom the NDC boldly and falsely named "Ataa Ayi" the criminal, were no impediment for Kufuor to attract foreign loan to Ghana but the same insults would prove to be in the case of Atta Mills' effort; a curious reasoning I would say.

Perhaps, a safe way to conclude is that the Indian loan is already in the bank. So move on to the next sucker. And we can do this with impudence and not call it insult.

The Indians gave Ghana a loan to build a presidential palace, coinciding with the celebration of our Golden Jubilee.

The name Golden Jubilee was not meant as an insult to the memory of Nkrumah. Mills' government floated the idea of the change because it said it did.

Factually, the name should celebrate both Nkrumah and Ghana in the eyes of any rational Ghanaian who did not have on any ideological blinkers.

The complex was built by Kufuor, an NPP, and has also within it a renovated Nkrumah Heritage House, the actual house Nkrumah lived in with his family until that infamous coup of February 1966.

Nkrumah's own daughter Samia was at the naming ceremony at the Golden Jubilee House and did not object to the naming.

But President Mills's regime has apparently decided to go ahead with the name change. The northern entrance has a bold shiny, metallic signage to that effect today.

One would have to wonder how much the change from Golden Jubilee to Flag Staff House must have cost the Mills regime; in both political and financial terms?

Meanwhile, President Mills is yet to cause a name change at Accra International Airport. Is that too expensive politically?

To this day, Kotoka's name still stands on the airport, much to the disgrace of many in Africa and the Diaspora. And for those of us Ghanaians who think Kotoka was a traitor, as has been documented historically, his presence as a name on our only international airport, a current day reality, is utter ignominy.

So what are we supposed to honor, Golden Jubilee House which celebrates us and Nkrumah at the same time or Flag Staff House which celebrates our colonial past? Which name insults most is a question many of us had to consider as the president bemoaned the insults hurled at his administration.

“Are we going to spend our time hurling insults at one another whiles we leave the development of [the] country unattended to?", he asked.

Go figure.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, October 29, 2010

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