Deputy Minister writes Letter to Late President Atta Mills

Dear Sir, In adding my voice to the numerous befitting tributes occasioned by your untimely departure from this ‘terra firma’, I evoked this Roman Catholic prayer for the dead translated from Latin into English as: “May the angels take you into Paradise, may the martyrs welcome you on your way and lead you into the Holy City Jerusalem. May the choir of angels welcome you, and with Lazarus who once was poor, may you have everlasting rest.”

I am convinced Jehovah heard and answered our prayers. Please prepare a place for us; for here is still hot and the unreasonableness and the political chicanery continues unabated. Sometimes I wonder whether this whole calling – politics, is worth it.

Prof., for the purpose of this first letter I will not bore you with too voluminous a piece because I am aware you are a fresher (‘homo’) who has just joined the Dr Hilla Limanns, Munufies, the D.F. Annans, the Ala Adjeteys, the B.J. Da Rochas and many others who went long before you, so you must be given some reasonable time to debrief them. I am sure Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah was thankful to you for entrenching his legacy during your three-and-a-half-years period as President of the Republic of Ghana.

A devout Christian as Osagyefo was, you will surely be reminded that you made the needed impact to establish a “Better Ghana” than you met it three-and-a-half short years ago and that your saviour Jesus Christ did not require four years, yet he is remembered the world over. You were his avowed follower and humble servant. You will be remembered.

Prof. some have decided not to allow you to rest in peace in spite of incessant calls from your family and other loved ones cautioning them to behave properly. They have continued their ultra offensive talk till date without signalling an end point.

They started by requesting that an autopsy be done on your gentle body without even bothering to inquire if it had been done or not. When they hit the trough on that, they changed gear and started a wicked speculation; that you were sent to the 37 Military Hospital dead – B.I.D: Brought In Dead.

Some even speculated that you died on arrival at the hospital. Prof. the speculators turned death ears on your dear brother, Dr Cadman Mills’ exposition that your sibling, Sammy Mills and your team of doctors played active roles in your upkeep and have since maintained that you were left to your fate. They also paraded their views about the prescriptions of the Coroner’s Act of 1960 as radical scholarship to mislead the public.

Making no headway, professionals including lawyers and a doctor who happens to be the President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) joined the fray and made all kinds of demands.

I wish these attempts were genuine and sincere. Are they? No Sir!

Unfortunately the intervention by the President of the Ghana Medical Association further strengthens the reasons behind my not being a member of the GMA since I graduated from University of Ghana Medical School.

Prof. do not misunderstand me for not registering with the Ghana Medical Association as a member as of now. I love my colleague doctors and the profession bequeathed to us by Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, but I dislike the conduct of some (few) leaders of the GMA who over the years have deliberately or inadvertently engaged in acts which pitch the noble association against NDC governments.

I am not unaware of the political inclinations of Dr Opoku Adusei, the current President of the GMA; but when we are voted to serve doctors, our duty must first and foremost be focused on doctors.

Prof. I wish to ask Dr. Opoku Adusei three questions but formulated into two:

1. Is his position on your untimely death emanating from the Council or the National Executive Committee of the Ghana Medical Association?

2. Is his position that of the N.P.P. being foisted on the Ghana Medical Association which also has N.D.C. sympathisers as members with equal rights?

Prof. I am aware neither the Council nor the National Executive Committee of the Ghana Medical Association has taken such a decision let alone request their President to articulate it. Question (2) is a difficult one. I do not know the answer.

My unsolicited advice to Dr Opoku Adusei is simple; please remember the G.M.A. must be a non partisan but political association seeking the welfare of doctors first and foremost. To allow the GMA to sink so low to the realms that it is being described currently on radio and television is to say the least appalling.

Prof. thank you for allowing me to contact you this early in the day. R.I.P.

Signed: Edward Omane-Boamah (Dr.)

Culled from Ghanaweb