Late Rawlings advised me to leave the NDC – Brigadier General Nunoo-Mensah

Seasoned Ghanaian politician, Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah has revealed that his switch from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to the Ghana Union Movement (GUM) was endorsed by the late President Jerry John Rawlings.

According to him, he felt both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) were going to lead Ghana into oblivion “and I was trying to make a strong point by joining GUM”.

The politician who believes both the NPP and NDC will not achieve anything for Ghana said, “The late President Rawlings encouraged me to leave the NDC and join GUM. I told him the two parties will achieve nothing for Ghana. Rawlings himself felt he risked his life for the country and still achieved nothing,” he told Samuel Eshun on e.TV Ghana’s Fact Sheet show.

He believes the Ghanaian political system is currently rotten than it was before the June 4 revolution and insists the lack of courage is “sinking Ghana. I once gave a boisterous speech at the NDC’s anniversary in the presence of the late President Rawlings and John Mahama and condemned the June 4 revolution saying we achieved nothing.

I don’t fear to speak the truth and because we lack the courage to speak the truth, Ghana is going down. I have been around for over 80 years and this is what I have seen.”

Brigadier General Nunoo-Mensah asserted that whenever concerned Ghanaians speak the truth, they are regarded as being with the opposition. “Let us have the courage to speak the truth and our mind. I am not saying I am an extra courageous person but we should speak the truth,” he championed.

The former National Security Advisor to the late President John Evans Attah Mills lamenting on the country’s economic situation added, “it cost me today’s 50 pesewas to build my house and with a salary equivalent to present day GH₵12.00, I could live like an Arab Chief. I am not an economist but the country has collapsed. I recently bought plantain for GH₵3 and that costs more than the house I live in.”

“I don’t speak unless I have something sensible to say. If I have nothing sensible to say, I don’t open my mouth. I have said all I can say to help the nation but they are not listening to me and we are where we are now,” he reiterated.

Brigadier General Nunoo-Mensah was appointed a member of the PNDC on 2 January 1982. He however resigned in November 1982 over differences with the late President Rawlings and joined the New Patriotic Party.

He was the campaign manager for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s bid for nomination as the party’s candidate for the Ghanaian presidential elections in 1998.

Nunoo-Mensah later defected from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to the National Democratic Congress (NDC), then in opposition and was very instrumental in their (NDC) campaign in the

December 2008 elections. In 2009, after the party won the elections he was made the National Security Advisor to the then newly elected President, John Evans Atta Mills of the NDC.