An intra-party squabble between top members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has hit the roof as the public is drawn into the boxing arena to witness the battle between pro-Mills and pro-Rawlings supporters of the ruling party. Ato Ahwoi, the influential pro-Mills fighter on the one hand yesterday grabbed the political jugular of the equally influential pro-Rawlings communications expert, Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, as Ghanaians listened to the unfolding drama with shock.
“My NDC brother, if President Mills does not appoint you as a minister, please continue to piss in as many times as you want!” Ahwoi fired a missile to Spio who refused to comment on the attack on him.
Spio fought an abrasive battle with Mills for the nod to lead the NDC to the elections of 2008 but in the end the latter won the day.
Many of Spio’s supporters who were expecting juicy appointments in the government have been sidelined, much to their astonishment.
The ‘sins’ leading to his exclusion from government is that he had commented on the sickness of President Atta Mills.
Ato Ahwoi, a key member of the close-knit ‘Fante Confederacy’ in the Mills Administration, literally slammed the government door on Spio, swearing, “The door will never be opened to him.”
Ahwoi, one of three brothers in the Mills camp of the ruling NDC, was responding to a Spio-Garbrah-authored newspaper article in which the former Communications Minister in Rawlings’ administration pointed at a litany of shortcomings in the President Mills Administration.
Rubbishing the contents of the article, Ato Ahwoi taunted his Fante brother and accused him of sulking because he could not make it to the Mills Cabinet, and ruled out any such possibility in the event of a reshuffle.
As if praying for an opportunity to vent his umbrage over Spio, he recalled that since 1993 the Chief Executive of Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation in London has always insulted President Mills.
He accused Spio of spreading the “Mills is sick” campaign through a text message to Jerry Rawlings which quickly spread like a ‘California wild fire’ and wondered whether he (Spio) would now like to work in a sick man’s team.
Spio, he said, is not a team player “and therefore the door will never be opened to him” adding that being an egocentric he would be a bad influence on the Mills team and so it would be better to keep him out.
He said the former Communications Minister has been making churlish arguments, posing as the most intelligent member of the ruling party.
“I am telling Spio-Gabrah that he is not the only intelligent man in the world. Spio-Garbrah is not the only intelligent man in the NDC,” Mr Ahwoi told Joyfm.
Ato Ahwoi’s attack on Spio was not limited to the airwaves but in an open letter in which he took a swipe at the Rawlings man who authored an article in the Daily Graphic titled, “Honouring Nkrumah’s Legacy: A Challenge To The NDC”.
Describing the article as deceptive, he said it launched an unnecessary attack on President Mills to ostensibly eulogise the late first President of the country.
Spio’s action, he noted, is intended to intimidate President Mills into giving him a ministerial appointment.
Another reason which he said is evidence that Spio is longing for a ministerial appointment lies in his reference to President Obama’s offer to US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, after a grueling campaign to lead the Democrats during the last general elections.
Mrs. Clinton, he claimed, “never said Mr. Obama was a sick man and will never win an election. Now why are you desperate to serve in the government headed by someone who will win an election?”
He asked further: “Are you implying that because you lost miserably to the President in the NDC primaries, he should invite you into an important position in his government?”
Spio, he noted, in the open letter, is dying to be a minister in Mills’ government “yet you are insulting your potential colleagues that they have not been appointed on the basis of merit but by virtue of proximity to power, feigned loyalty, financial considerations and other factors.”
Continuing, he asked rhetorically, “Are you implying that you were appointed a Minister in the 90s by some of these reasons like fake loyalty and financial considerations?”
Taunting his party colleague further, Ato Ahwoi said, “If you want to be a presidential candidate of the NDC and become the President of the Republic of Ghana as a true party man why don’t you do a private memo on the shortcomings and possible solutions, other than publishing them?”
A few days before the centenary celebrations for Ghana’s first president, Dr. Spio-Garbrah who conducted an abrasive contest for the NDC flagbearership race in the last elections but lost out, wrote a scathing article in which he pointed at the appointment of unfit persons in the government.
He particularly noted that the communications machinery of government is unable to speak with one voice, a development which has not been helpful to governance.
There are persons in government whose loyalty to the party cannot be vouched for, he opined, stressing that a number of shortcomings have chipped at the popularity of the party. Spio noted that the present composition of the cabinet is not the best having been made up of a Team B membership with Team A sitting on the bench.
The qualified ones, he stated, have been marginalized for the non-performers which is affecting the fortunes of the party.
Although the title of the scathing article centred on honouring the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Dr. Spio-Garbrah weaved it to encompass the shortcomings of the Mills government as he sees them.
Having campaigned feverishly against then Prof Mills till the fires died out on the pre-NDC presidential primaries, Spio’s concerns at this time could easily be interpreted as the case of the monkey and the sour grapes.xxxxxxxxxxLeading NDC member and former minister under Jerry John Rawlings Ekwow Spio-Garbrah has accused the man who beat him to the NDC flagbearership in 2006, President John Evans Atta Mills, of frittering away the government's goodwill and thereby derailing the NDC's political fortunes in the 2012 elections by woefully failing to meet the expectations of Ghanaians and most importantly, ordinary members of the party.
In a scathing article in the Friday, September 18, 2009 edition of the Daily Graphic, Dr Spio-Garbrah appears to have pitched camp with former president Rawlings in breaking ranks and publicly calling for a faster pace of delivery by the Mills administration. He also appears to have made the first moves towards vying for the party's 2012 ticket, warning that leading NDC members would not sit by and watch Prof John Atta Mills return the NDC to opposition through his actions and/or inactions.
"Should leading NDC members stay quietly on the sidelines even if we can see that if matters continue as they are we [NDC] would lose power in 2012? Are we the kind of passengers who sit passively in a bus until we die in an accident even when we realise that the bus is not being driven well?", he wonders.In the article, entitled Honouring Nkrumah's legacy: A Challenge to NDC, Dr Spio-Garbrah dismissed attempts by some members of the Mills administration to sweep under the carpet, adverse comments made by former President J J Rawlings about the calibre of persons appointed as Ministers by President John Atta Mills and the pace of work of the Mills administration, maintaining that Mr. Rawlings "is the only one who has ever supervised President Mills as a Vice President, and therefore the only one who can pronounce fairly on whether President Mills can do better or not."
Drawing parallels from the different approaches adopted during Ghana’s independence struggle, Dr Garbrah insisted that calls by the Mills administration for more time to deliver on its electoral promises were unacceptable, especially in the wake of the attacks it launched on the erstwhile NPP administration in the areas of job creation, general national development (roads, electricity, water, hospitals, etc) and the promises it made to the electorate before narrowly winning the 2008 general elections. “The NDC rank and file who fought to bring the Mills-Mahama administration into power are asking for “Jobs and Empowerment NOW”, NOT “Jobs and Empowerment in the shortest possible time”, he stated.
Citing several instances of a lack of vision and initiative in the Mills administration, including the inability to capitalise on the historic first African visit by US President Barack Obama to market Ghana’s tourism potentials and failing to unite Ghanaians in the quest for national development, Ghana’s former ambassador to the US from 1994-1997 is adamant the Mills administration cannot be accused of putting its best foot forward.
“Currently, if by the generally agreed slow pace of the government, some Ghanaians who need jobs or good health are dying very quietly and invisibly in remote parts of the country, should patriotic Ghanaians remain quiet simply because they are NDC members and because they fully support this government”?
He also took a swipe at the quality of persons appointed into public office by the administration, accusing it of making appointments “not on the basis of merit but by virtue of proximity to power, feigned loyalty, financial considerations and other factors”.
“There is a general measureable view around the country that the NDC government can indeed achieve more results faster if it simply ensured that the right NDC people (emphasis ours) are in the right positions‚ a large segments of the public have been asking why the government may have chosen to field some players from its Team B when many Team A players are available. Can the government really move quickly if it appoints people who may mean well but who lack the requisite qualifications, experience and therefore confidence to take quick and correct decisions in their new positions? Of the more than 70 experienced Ministers and Deputies from the Rawlings era, only two are in the current line-up of Ministers and Deputies.While commending the Mills administration for honouring the legacy of Ghana’s first President, perhaps premised on their admiration of Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s contribution to Ghana’s development, he said many Ghanaians believed the current government had failed to emulate the sense of urgency and speed that characterised the life and times of the man voted Africa’s man of the millennium in the year 2000.
Source: Statesman and posted on
www.ghanaweb.com: General News of Wednesday, 23 September 2009 with the title : "Spio Attacks Mills"
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