Former First Lady and President of the 31st December Women’s Movement (DWM) Nana Konadu Agyeman- Rawlings has stated that the NDC leadership under President Mills has failed to admit the problems and short-comings that characterized the NDC congress in Sunyani in July 2011.
She alleged that over 500 delegates who are her supporters were denied accreditation to vote.
She was speaking with SaCut Amenga-Etego host of the ‘NEW VOICES’, a political talk show on an Accra-based radio station Xfm 95.1 on New Year’s day.
Asked how she perceives the handling of the aftermath of the congress by the NDC leadership, the former First Lady said: “First of all before you can handle an aftermath, you have to accept that you did the right thing or the wrong thing…you have to accept that there were mistakes before you can handle the aftermath. If you cannot accept that there were mistakes, how do you handle an aftermath?
And I have over 500 people who were denied accreditation to go and vote even though they are constituency executives so if you don’t accept there are mistakes, you cannot attempt to correct the mistakes…They know all what they have done that is right or wrong and they have to deal with it by first accepting that there were mistakes,” the former First Lady said.
Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings asked Ghanaian women to be ambitious in 2012 because ambition is good and women must not be bothered about people referring to them as over-ambitious. ‘If it wasn’t for ambition, we wouldn’t have cell phones today, man wouldn’t have gone to the moon or flown airplanes and we wouldn’t have satellites giving us information on the airwaves so ambition is good,” she stated.
In reaction to a question on her expectations from the NDC leadership regarding the ‘house-cleaning’ call by the NDC founder, she said she cannot determine if the NDC leadership will heed the call by the party founder Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings considering that the leadership chooses to go in their own direction. ‘What the party founder said is clear and we all understand it…you cannot use an organization that is tainted with corruption or negativity and expect to get a first class in any examination…it is not possible so until they do that house cleaning, the rest will be history,” she asserted.
Asked if she expects the ‘house cleaning’ to come to pass in the NDC she said “I’m not a soothsayer otherwise I would’ve told you about so many things…It would be foolhardy to try to answer a question like that knowing the current prevailing conditions in our party.”
She also accused the Kufuor administration of taking over buildings of the DWM for NHIS and District Assembly offices with some even labeled as ‘HIPC’ projects. She said even though the courts have ordered their return nothing has been done. She said, her organization intends to write to the individual assemblies to return such properties, and if that fails, the Movement will proceed to sue the DCEs or ministers in charge of such institutions to retrieve the property. She revealed that former Attorney-General Betty Mould Iddrisu requested an out-of court settlement for one out of the five DWM cases sent to court but said that settlement hasn’t taken place yet.
Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings wished all Ghanaians a reflective new year saying that even though many people had their dreams curtailed in the past year due to hardships, it is her hope that this year, things will get better.
Story by A.S Denis/Xfm 95.1/Accra-Ghana
Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings 