By: Ebo Quansah
President Atta Mills
It looks like the image of President John Evans Atta Mills put in the public domain by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is undergoing a change.
It is not yet known what is going to be new in the party’s presentation of the Head of State in public, but The Chronicle can report authoritatively that the changes are being rang in, and they have their genesis in the problems created for the party and government by the GH¢51 million dole-out to Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, a businessman and financier of the party.
A text message wired at 20 minutes past two in the early morning of Thursday, February 23, 2012, to members of the party’s Communications Team, as well as spokespersons for the Mills government, directs that all efforts should be made to insulate the President from all problems created by the Woyome scandal.
Consequently, the text message directs that the Security Adviser to the President, Joseph Nunoo-Mensah, and National Security Coordinator Larry Gbevlo Lartey should be persuaded not to field maverick politician Kofi Wayo and those who behave like him in speaking on behalf of the President.
“Anyemime,” (friends) the text message signed by someone who gave his name simply as Richard, stated: “We ought to be mindful of the kind of propaganda we put out there concerning de President. See what a character like Woyome who was not in the trenches with us has brought us.
“Another liability is Kofi Wayo, whom we all know has a questionable record in and out of de country, en is also not trusted by the NDC, yet continues to speak for the President on air. Nunoo-Mensah and Gbevlo should be spoken to not to use the likes, and others we have spoken of. -Richard.”
On cellular phone yesterday, Mr. Richard Quashigah, Propaganda Secretary of the party, told The Chronicle that he was not the author of the text message. He said he was not aware of the source either.
He insinuated though that the contents could strike a cord with some thinking within the party, and could, therefore, have come from within the party hierarchy.
Political analysts believe the public bashing the party and government have received over the handling of the Woyome scandal might be the reason why the party, or a section of it, is now demanding a new means of presenting the President.
It is beginning to look like the presentation of Prof. J.E.A. Mills as holier than though, in the face of evidence that the President might not even have control over his ministers and senior officials, might be one of the factors that necessitated the text message.
One analyst referred to the ‘goat could be a cow’ episode propagated by a senior member of the Mills administration as alienating the public from the President, rather than winning new converts to the cause of the Presidency, as the campaign for the 2012 presidential election unofficially kicks-off.
“I think the party is beginning to realise that the presentation of the President as all-knowing and doer of all things is beginning to tell on the people’s perception of him, following the Woyome scandal.
The NDC may be looking at new ways of packaging Mills for the elections, given the disaster of the Woyome scandal, and how it has been handled,” said the analyst, who wants to remain anonymous.
