Mills Tasked To Beg Rawlings

A CONTROVERSIAL serial caller, Dr. Asemfofro, has asked President Mills and the leadership of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to render an unqualified apology to former president Jerry John Rawlings if the party wants to win the 2012 general elections. Dr. Asemfofro, who was speaking on Oman FM�s political program �Boiling Point� on Thursday September 15, 2011, bemoaned that the shabby treatment meted out to the former first family was unwarranted since it had the potential of ruining the fortunes of the party. The die-hard NDC sympathizer, who joined the NDC because of Rawlings, said the current disunity in the party was baffling, expressing the belief that President Mills, as the leader of the party, had not done enough to quench the fire in the party. He asserted that the charisma and the good-looking characteristics of the former president made him indispensable in the NDC when it came to elections. Asemfofro stated that if bridges of peace were not built in the party to get the founder of the party Rawlings to campaign for it in the 2012 election, then Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP would start singing victory songs. He claimed the NDC grieved over the behavior of some NDC delegates who jeered the former president and his wife during the Sunyani congress, stating, �It was so bad, shameful and disgraceful.� He pleaded with President Mills and the leadership of the party to confer with some imminent traditional leaders in the country to lead a party delegation to apologize to the former first family for the behavior in Sunyani. Asemfofro, who had been critical of the former president for his criticism of the Mills-Mahama administration, formally apologized to the Rawlingses for any unsavory words he might have used against them and asked for forgiveness. He quoted extensively from the Holy Bible to warn the NDC family that the current disunity in the party was a recipe for failure and asked all loving NDC faithful to show concern. He also warned that party bigwigs who had become so selfish to learn from history, claiming that in 1979, the disunity between Victor Owusu and Paa Willie allowed Dr. Hilla Limman to win the then general elections. However, an NDC commentator, Bernard Anim Piesie disagreed that the Rawlingses had been treated unfairly in the party, observing that no party leader had maligned the former first family. He said the Rawlingses lost a contest and should come to terms with that and work together as a family. But the director for operations of FONKAR, Ernest Owusu Bempah disagreed with Piesie, saying Wikileaks� US cables had exposed the �long standing diabolical agenda� of some NDC �elements� against the former president Rawlings and his role as founder of the party. Recounting recent attacks on some members of KONKAR, he stated that the NDC party leadership had not shown any commitment to ensuring unity in the party, questioning why the party leadership had not seen the need to call on the former president after the Sunyani congress. Owusu Bempah disclosed that FONKAR had made copies of some portions of the Wikileaks US cables to distribute to NDC foot-soldiers to vindicate the positions of ex-president Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.