Professor Evans Atta Mills (L) and former President Jerry John Rawlings (R)

How Rawlings contracted us to derail Atta Mills’ political career – Kwamena Ahwoi

On August 5, 2020, 12:22 PM

NDC party stalwart Professor Kwamena Ahwoi has said that former-President Jerry John Rawlings tried to create friction between the Ahwoi family and former President John Evans Atta Mills.

According to Professor Ahwoi, Mr Rawlings sowed seeds of discord by persuading his senior brother Ato Ahwoi, to challenge Prof Mills to the flagbearership position of the NDC in 2006 ahead of the 2008 elections.

Under Mr Rawlings’ long regime, Kwamena Ahwoi served as Minister for Local Government and Rural Development from 1988 to 2000, while Professor Mills was Vice President from 1996 to 2000.

Professor Mills was subsequently elected as flagbearer, but failed in two presidential elections, losing to the NPP’s John Agyekum Kufour.

Prof. Mills, however, won the 2008 election and was sworn into office on January 7, 2009. His relationship with Mr Rawlings fell on rocks, and the two never saw eye to eye until Mills died on July 24, 2012.

In his latest book–Working with Rawlings, Prof claimed that but prior to the national elections, Mr Rawlings sought to truncate the political ambitions of Prof Mills in 2006.

In Chapter 11, page 252 of the book, Kwamena Ahwoi rehashed an incident which he first mentioned in Chapter 7 – this time with more details.

The plot by Mr Rawlings against Prof. Mills

According to Kwamena, “Rawlings tried to lobby my senior brother Ato Ahwoi to contest Professor Atta Mills in the 2006 NDC flagbearer election”.
He said Mr Rawlings went a step further when he “he failed” by trying “to recruit my other senior brother Kwesi Ahwoi and I to convince Ato to do so”.

For Kwamena “that encounter represented the lowest point in my relationship with Rawlings because I read into it a sense of betrayal and of disloyalty of the Judas Iscariot type”.

“But perhaps the most bizarre of all of Rawlings’ intrigues against Professor Mills was when he asked my senior brother Ato Ahwoi of all people to contest against Professor Mills. Jerry Rawlings invited Ato Ahwoi to his Ridge residence and tried to prevail on him to contest the presidential primaries against Professor Mills,” he stressed.

Casting his mind back, Kwamena recollected Ato’s astonishment because Mr Rawlings knew Ato’s relationship with Professor Mills and also knew the role that Ato had played in 1996 in convincing Professor Mills to agree to become Mr Rawlings’ running mate.

“According to Ato Ahwoi, the meeting lasted for about two hours and when Rawlings realised he would not make any headway, they bade each other goodbye. Rawlings, however, requested Ato to ask his two brothers, Kwesi Ahwoi and I, to see him the next day. But asked him not to inform us about the likely subject matter of the meeting,” Kwemana stated in his book that chronicled events during Rawlings era and the Mill administration–December 31, 1981, to January 7, 2001, and January 7, 2009, to July 24, 2012.

He continued, “Ato Ahwoi duly informed us about Rawlings’ invitation but also, of course, informed us of the likely subject matter of the meeting.

“When Kwesi and I got to Rawlings’ Ridge residence, Rawlings went straight to the point. He wanted us to convince Ato to contest the NDC presidential primaries against Professor Mills.

“He went into a long explanation as to why he thought that was in the best interest of the NDC. When he finished, I begged permission of my senior brother Kwesi to let me respond.

“He agreed, and I responded thus: ‘Mr. President, you have taught me in the long period that I worked with you in government as your minister that a traitor is worse than an enemy. You have taught me that the enemy you know and can take steps against – but the traitor you never know because he is coming from within.

“As brothers, you know our relationship with Professor Mills and yet you are asking us to act traitorously against him and betray him. I am very disappointed in you. If you have nothing else to tell us, we would like to take our leave’”.

Prof Ahwoi said that he could tell that Mr Rawlings had regretted inviting them, but then it was too late.

“Mr Rawlings only requested us not to tell President Mills about what had transpired between us in those two days. We took our leave, and from his residence, we called Ato and the three of us drove to Professor Mills’ residence at the Regimanuel Estate. We gave him a detailed briefing of all that had transpired between President Rawlings and the three of us,” Kwamena concluded.