Former President and Founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings has condemned the situation where media propagandists sponsored by some within the party deliberately twist the truth, in what he says, to court negativity towards him.
In an address delivered at a Town Hall meeting of cadres and NDC activists at the Arts Centre in Accra on Saturday, Mr. Rawlings also said though the party has a lot of great, good people with solid integrity, a lot of the party’s grip is in the hands of those who lack integrity.
He said, “When people in NDC and NPP are equally angry about the appointment of Martin Amidu, what should it tell you? Martin should have been used by us (NDC) but no we checked him in, when he is an embodiment of what we stand for.”
In apparent reference to his tweets on the robberies in the country, which had courted some controversy, the former President said he tweeted primarily on media articles about purported wrangling within the national security apparatus. He said his initial tweet preceded the spate of armed robbery incidents that caught national attention, noting that if such reports come out and we cannot analyze them properly then people would always outwit us and our own people would also do the same.
The former President said he had witnessed a lot of negative actions during the Kufuor, Mills and Mahama eras, stating that had some of the negative actions against him come from the NPP he would not have been surprised but coming from his own people was difficult to take.
He said just as we have many “psychiatrically challenged” personalities holding bibles with many followers, so do we have in politics too. “And if we don’t recognize them quickly and find a way of pushing them out then we are destined for failure.”
Responding to allegations by a leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that he was protecting Marwan Traboulsi who has a large-scale cargo operation at the Kotoka International Airport, Mr. Rawlings brushed off the business link and described Mr. Traboulsi as a brilliant and efficient personality who turned around cargo handling operations at the airport.
“I will defend him any day as one of the most efficient and brilliant minds that I have come across. He was one of the first to go into large-scale farming and the export of pineapples during the revolution. Others did the same but his operations were so efficient that he was doing much better than some of the others. He later secured an aircraft that not only exported his produce but that of other farmers,” Flt Lt Rawlings said.
Traboulsi later left farming and diversified into cargo handling where his efficiency won him a bid to manage cargo handling at the airport. “His efficiency level was so high we could beat South Africa by 30 minutes in cargo handling operations. Today some want to spoil the names of good people just like we do in our party,” the former President stated.
Other speakers at the event were Mr. Antwi Boasiako-Sekyere, Dr. Hussein Inusah, Professor Kodzo Gavua, Dr. Donald Agumenu and Dr. Benjamin Kunbuor.
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