Kufuor's Dubious Reconciliation

When ex-President Rawlings declined to attend our Golden Jubilee celebration, Kofi Akordor and some journalists took him on in the Daily Graphic as well as some private Newspapers with their vile publications.

They portrayed J.J as an enemy of reconciliation. Kofi Akordor poured invectives on him for “letting his admirers down” but he didn’t see the hollow plot to disgrace the people’s hero. However it portended what was to come afterwards.

A similar scene played itself at Fathia Nkrumah’s Funeral where Kufuor refused to shake hands with eminent personalities, carefully and deliberately doing so to avoid a face to face encounter with Rawlings. Perhaps a handshake would have been an avenue for the much sought-after peace and unity. Alas! It was not to be.

The vile Newspapers and their petty writers saw nothing to report. They were missing in action that day but Kufuor’s action gives Akordor and his ilk food for thought. If the ex-President had honoured the invitation would he have been accorded the honour he deserves? Would he have been respected or ignored? Would Rawlings have been ignored like in the first Parliamentary address of President Kufuor where the former president was embarrassed and not acknowledged?

Rawlings is nobody’s fool and will not be used to satisfy the whims and caprices of anyone. And that is the truth.

The stomach journalists have brushed aside the ethics of journalism and prudence, demeaning this noble profession for a mess of pottage like the biblical Esau.

Gone are the days when noble men showed the nobility of the pen and ink fraternity. Today, pseudo journalists and quasi-media men and faceless people hide behind the cloak of democracy to attack personalities without compunction. Mediocrity is now elevated above sound wisdom.

But we still have some fine gentlemen around who uphold the integrity thereof. If any one deserves the stick it is Kufuor. Having set up a spurious kangaroo National Reconciliation Commission with men whose consciences were steamed with a hot iron, the target was one man, Rawlings.

The whole world now knows the motive behind this cancerous body. It was just to consume one man.

We can’t have a genuine reconciliation in a dispensation where a sitting President has put in place a machinery to destroy his benevolent predecessor. We can’t have it when religious leaders take sides when they are supposed to be the arbiters and catalyst for unity. It won’t work when a Council of State member decides at will to pour vituperations on Rawlings on Radio and nobody bats an eye or calls him to order, never when “chop chop” man Kwaku Baaku, that arrogant braggart sits before television cameras clutching some fake documents and claiming he knows everything under the sun about Rawlings .

What we have today is leadership misbehavior under democracy. Genuine reconciliation comes with a pragmatic approach to defuse tension and achieve results.
A fish rots from the head so reconciliation without a good head will be an exercise in futility. It will take us nowhere. Genuine Reconciliation must begin with an unqualified apology to Dr. Rawlings by President Kufuor for withdrawing the former’s privileges and vilifying him all over the place.

If the current leadership will throw in the towel of pride and tackle it at the roots, Ghana will rejoice and heaven will be glad. But until then nobody should delude himself that genuine reconciliation will take place.

If Kufuor did not bring about a genuine reconciliation, he would be remembered as a shameless CIA poodle who poisoned the minds of a whole generation of Ghanaians against a man who lifted Ghana from the abyss of disgrace to the pinnacle of glory.

It will be embarrassing to read how he went round trying to erase all that ex-president Rawlings achieved over the years. And posterity will dust the archives and read our past where they will find the truth and the glory of Rawlings.
Already it has been established that Kufuor said he has done better than Nkrumah and Rawlings. YES HE HAS TRULY DONE BETTER IN DIVIDING GHANA ALONG ETHNIC LINES FILLED WITH HATRED AND SUSPICION. This is because he will leave behind a legacy of hate, power outage that has offended most Ghanaians, water shortage, campaign of calumny and above all ethnic rivalry and evil unprecedented in our history.

The so called national reconciliation commission sought to erode the legacy of Rawlings and all that June 4th stood and still stands for. But genuine reconciliation is inevitable if this nation must move forward.

Finally it will be in the interest of Kufuor to bring it to pass if he must escape the repercussion of his actions considering the atrocities he has meted out to others in opposition.

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.