Professor Kwamena Ahwoi, a stalwart in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and former Minister for Local Government, says his former boss, Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, comes nowhere near Dr Kwame Nkrumah when it comes to big visions.
According to him, whereas the first President of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, had a well thought out vision which encompassed free education and health among others, the contrary best describes Rawlings.
“Jerry Rawlings had no such big ideas. He had no such big vision. He seldom came up with any original ideas, which he then charged his subordinates to implement,” Prof Ahwoi wrote in his book, ‘Working with Rawlings.’
Bringing out the contrast between the two former presidents, Professor Ahwoi said internationally Dr Kwame Nkrumah stood for anti-imperialism and anti-neocolonialism.
Domestically and in the political sphere, Dr Kwame Nkrumah wanted a united Ghana with a unitary system of government, the book stated, citing that Dr Nkrumah wanted a common national ideology symbolised by the socialism of the Convention People’s Party (CPP).
It further indicated that economically, Dr Nkrumah had a vision of Ghana as an industrialised state, with its citizens in control of the commanding heights of the economy.
“His vision for Ghana encompassed free education, free health care and even free potable water. In all of these, he was the prime mover. He came out with the big ideas, and his ministers and other appointees became the vehicles for the execution and operationalisation of those big ideas,” the book opined.
It also said of Rawlings: “It is a fact that Rawlings was no Kwame Nkrumah when it comes to vision. Kwame Nkrumah was very clear about his vision – bold and ambitious – and he articulated these in the numerous books that he authored.”
The book by Prof Ahwoi, which has sparked controversies over his real intent, indicated that most game-changing programmes that were implemented by the Rawlings government came from his appointees, but often owed their origins to Rawlings’ deep concern for economic inequalities.
“What Rawlings was good at was that once an idea was sold to him and he bought into it, he took it and ran with it,” the book said.
Though the former Local Government Minister recognised that former President Rawlings wished for Ghana’s material development, he also acknowledged that the latter “personally had no plan and no strategy to achieve that material development.”
Prof Ahwoi continued that Mr Rawlings was, however, able to rally round a very capable team of technocrats who were able to develop both a plan and a strategy for him.
The book also tells of Rawlings as someone who was “personally committed to the equitable development of all parts of Ghana.”
It was this commitment that manifested in the National Electrification Programme, under which every settlement with a population of over 500 people was to be connected to the national grid, and the Basic Needs Programme, under which every district hospital had potable water and, at least, a second-class road to the district capital.”
It continued that “it was the same commitment that saw him enthusiastically work towards the establishment of the ‘University of the North’.
The book says the pro-Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) groups in the Consultative Assembly that drew up the 1992 Constitution were appropriately briefed on the personal commitment of Rawlings to equitable development.
The groups were said to be committed, and they fought ceaselessly in the deliberations of the Assembly to have this commitment of equitable development enshrined in the Constitution.
The post Ahwoi compares his mentor to Kwame Nkrumah and says: RAWLINGS HAD NO BIG VISION appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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