Abodakpi urges protection of Rawlings' legacies

Chairperson of Volta Regional Council of Elders of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dan Abodakpi, has called for the protection of the legacies of late former President Jerry John Rawlings.

"Besides the Fourth Republic, NDC is the greatest living legacy Jerry John Rawlings has bequeathed to us and to Ghanaians," Mr Abodakpi stated in an address read on his behalf at a vigil organised by the Greater Accra Regional Branch of the NDC in honour of the late former President.

"And his legacy shall and must be protected and defended at all times. It is the only legacy that has brought hope, equality, equity, justice, accountability, probity and development into our body politics.

"It is not a night for political slogans to ginger party members, but a night to deeply reflect on our conducts to ask deep and searching questions for our conscience to answer in prayer.

"Indeed, it is a time to also protest against ourselves in the quietness of our vigil and meditations… Protest to remind ourselves of whether the foundational pillars and values of NDC, which the founder stood for, and defended all his life, can be sustained in coming days, and in the years ahead. Let us sincerely and soberly search our souls in these difficult times."

He said former President Rawlings deserved a befitting state burial; stating that "not an ostentatious state burial but a burial ceremony that should reflect his simple, ordinary and magnanimous lifestyle".

Mr Abodakpi said the NDC, which was former President Rawlings’s living legacy, shall honour him by participating in his funeral and burial activities.

"It would be unconscionable, and an indelible blot on the conscience of NDC not to honour our Founder by not playing key activities and roles in his burial ceremony."

He said the death of former President Rawlings called for sober reflections, saying, "our utterances on the death of Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, should be decorous, devoid of rancour, and opportunism."