The day 31st December Women’s Movement begged First Lady, Naadu Mills

Members of the 31st December Women’s Movement headed by the former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, were compelled to beg the late Mills’ wife at a public event, former President Rawlings has claimed.

“Organisers of the event frantically went on their knees to apologise to the Vice-President’s wife (Naadu Mills) and begged her to stay,” the former president Rawlings stated in a release to clarify an incident that Prof Kwamena Ahwoi claimed in his latest book might have created a rift between Rawlings and the late President Mills.

In his book, Working with Rawlings, Prof Ahwoi claimed that the former President formed a three-man committee to investigate allegations of gross disrespect Naadu Mills, wife of the then Vice-President J.E.A Mills, showed former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, at an event at Afiadenyigba in the Dangbe East District of the Greater Accra Region.

He claimed that when the report was submitted to Rawlings, he seemed displeased about it because it contradicted what his wife told him.

But here is the former President’s version of the incident, which happened 20 years ago.

In 2000, at Sege, near Ada in the Greater Accra Region, there was a durbar of chiefs as part of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) campaign programme, an activity which saw former President Rawlings and his Vice President, Prof Mills, in attendance.

Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and Naadu Mills were to join them for the trip, but Mrs Mills declined to join the then first lady’s convoy, the former President claimed in a statement.

In line with a directive the then President Rawlings had issued regarding the attendance of functions by state officials, no state functionaries who turned up late was to be allowed to drive into open spaces at durbar grounds.

Such latecomers, the directive pointed, should be denied access by policemen on duty because driving through such open spaces towards the dais generated dust to the discomfort of chiefs and other invited guests.

When Naadu Mills finally arrived in the middle of the programme, the policemen on duty carried out the order, compelling her to alight and walk towards the dais.

But this action, former president Rawlings claimed did not go down well with Naadu Mills.

“When Mrs. Mills arrived at the durbar grounds at Afiadenyegba, her convoy in an attempt to drive onto the sandy durbar grounds was frantically flagged down and stopped by a police officer assigned to the function.

“Mrs. Mills in a fury demanded the reason for this. The police officer proceeded to explain the rationale for stopping her car which unfortunately did little to diffuse the situation and she said she was leaving,” Mr Rawlings said in a statement.

The then-first lady who had invited the late Mills’ wife arrived to see organisers on their knees, pleading with Mrs Mills , who the statement said was clearly upset.

Once she was told, she joined in to plead on the police officers behalf.

“In an attempt to de-escalate the situation, Nana Konadu apologised to Mrs Mills and explained that all manner of hiccups occurred at public events, but that should not bother her,” the former president said.

But the woes of the police officer and his team in question was far from over as Mrs Mills called for their immediate transfer.

The decision to transfer the officers was subsequently overturned by former President Rawlings.