Return of Konadu: NDC believes she’s of no value to them – David Tamakloe

Editor of the online news portal, WhatsUp News, David Tamakloe doubts the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will heed to calls to bring back the wife of the late Jerry John Rawlings, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings back to the fold.

According to him, some leaders of the party believe she has outlived her prominence to them and see no reason why she should be forgiven for her transgressions to them, and re-made a member of the party she toiled blood and sweat to build alongside her late husband.

At the first-anniversary commemoration ceremony for the late President at the NDC Headquarters, on Friday, November 12, 2021, Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings argued that her mother, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings was an integral part of the NDC and needs to be accepted back.

“At this juncture, I would want to say what no one wants to hear. Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings is an integral part of the party. Let us do all we can to bring her back. In every family there is conflict, but there are also elders who will mediate the conflict. We are calling on our elders, this is the time.

“We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but if we want victory to rescue the people of Ghana from their current situation, let us do what we have to do.”

Martin Amidu supported this call and asked the party to welcome the cadres who have been sidelined in the party in addition to Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings.

David Tamakloe looking at this call from the perspective of Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings noted the appeal as one in the right direction. “Because it is her mother and she grew up knowing how hard she worked for the party and in making NDC what it is now, her call is no surprise to me.

"But I believe she made this call without asking about the feelings of the other NDC leaders and members. They feel her actions in the past years were ones that were not in favour of the party.

"When you talk about Konadu Rawlings to anyone who follows politics they will say she can easily switch sides regardless of which political party she belongs to and where her interests lie. From the 2000s it was obvious Konadu’s relationship with the NDC was not what it used to be.”

On the Editors’ Take edition of the Happy Morning Show, he pointed out that the NDC lost the 2000 elections without her, won the elections in 2008 without her and lost again in 2016 and 2020 without her.

“She opposed the candidature of the late President Mills. I am not the one saying no to her return but listening to a lot of the party’s faithful, they ask what will be the value of her coming back to the party and are against the calls. They believe the damage she has caused the party is enough.”

Yaw Obeng Manu of the Ghanaian Publisher Newspaper also shared, “Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings is a spent force. She has always been against Mahama and was opposed to his appointment as Veep. If the NDC wants to make progress they may want to bring her back for the fact that she’s been a mother to them and they want to be a family again.”

In 2008, Konadu Rawlings contested the late President John Mills during the party’s presidential primaries but lost woefully; a situation which some belief informed her decision to establish her party; the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 2012. after resigning from the NDC in the same year.

She has since been very critical of the NDC and has on several occasions questioned the running of the country during the party’s tenure. Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings vowed never to return to the NDC under any circumstance.