Former President Jerry Rawlings has fired back at Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi, a former Local Government Minister under Rawlings, after Ahwoi claimed that the former President’s wife, former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, had a point demanded to be made Running Mate to Mills.
In a reply to Prof. Ahwoi’s book, “Working with Rawlings,” the office of the former President disputes the alleged Vice Presidential ambitions of Mrs. Rawlings as a deliberate fabrication by Prof. Ahwoi to serve “parochial interest.”
“It must be stated, that the claim by named persons in the book that Nana Konadu, at a meeting with Professor Mills requested for the Vice-Presidential slot is an outright fabrication. Nana Konadu never requested, indicated or discussed with any individual an intention or desire to be the running-mate to Vice-President Mills,” the ex-president said.
“This book is quite unfortunately, riddled with countless fabrications and assumptions ascribed to said individuals who were thought to have more honour,” the former President’s office noted.
The reaction which was signed by the former President’s Communications Director, Kobina Andoh Amokwah, was part of a lengthy response to the book which among other things also said the former President had often left the discussion to his Cabinet members and only provided leadership after the team had come out with a policy position.
As part of the contents of “Working with Rawlings” former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings had been cast as one of the reasons former President John Mills and the Founder of his party, President Rawlings never had a good relationship.
Nana Konadu, it is alleged, at a point had requested to be Running Mate to Mills but had been denied the request, leading to bitterness between herself and Mills that eventually engulfed President Rawlings.
However, the former President disputes the claim saying his wife never made any such request to be Running Mate to Mills.
“This book appears to have no aim of serving history with facts. It reads as an opportunistic and calculated attempt to ridicule President Rawlings and former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, using the personality of the late President John Atta Mills as the bait. From the inception, the author has harboured his own parochial agenda which clashed naturally with the integrity and accountability of Rawlings,” M. Rawlings fired..