"Throw out babies with teeth within government" -Rawlings tells Prez Mahama

Former President Jerry John Rawlings on Thursday in a proverbial statement called on President John Dramani Mahama to “dig out” some people within government if he wants to restore integrity to the Presidency, government and the NDC party.

Speaking at the special delegates’ congress to endorse President Mahama as the flagbearer of the party for the 2012 General Elections, the founder of the ruling NDC told the sitting president that his first hurdle towards being an elected President had began.

Ex-president Rawlings who had a rousing welcome when he took his turn to mount the podium in a rhetoric manner asked, “Mr. President, fellow Ghanaians it is said that we should not throw out the baby with the bath water, but what do we do when some of the babies in the tub are babies with teeth, biting and spewing invectives? Should they not be lowered out with the dirty water so we can concentrate on the good ones? After all one bad nut is all it takes to spoil the taste in your mouth.”

“When we find ourselves at a wooden bridge with some planks rotten, do we wait to get new planks before removing the rotten ones or do we remove the rotten ones immediately to prevent the potential loss of limbs and lives?,” he further questioned.

Former President Rawlings called on his party as well as Ghanaians to stop being political hypocrites.

He said, “The uncivilized tendency of poking thoughtlessly people who have sacrificed for both party and country, and later attempting to embrace them for political expediency must stop. Let us begin to show civility towards each other, in the hope that it is not too late.”

Ex-president Rawlings, however, congratulated President Mahama for attaching urgency to his request to provide street lights to a few villages where a spate of killings “which have increased drastically over the past years having been taking place with well anticipated impunity.”

He also expressed disappointment at the manner with which a call for investigations into the killings was accepted with mixed feelings and called for an investigation into the “lukewarm attitude of some of these authorities.”

He said, “I almost got the impression that some authorities did not want the re-emergence of these killings to be made public for reasons best known to them. Some of the opposition media however exposed it.”

Ex-president Rawlings also called for harmony within the NDC party noting since the party is composed of diverse political persuasions, groups and interests, it is crucial that all these interests and their contributions to the continuous survival of the NDC are recognized, carefully weighed and harmonized at all times.

“It is in the NDC’s interest to re-engage and remain focused on its core values, ideals and traditions of truth, honesty, integrity and justice. These are the cherished ingredients that have sustained the party over the past two decades,” he stated.

He also bemoaned the political climate which is now being experienced in the country and called on party members to use the gathering as an opportunity to get back to the noble principles and values that have always distinguished us from other political traditions.