RAWLINGS FUMES OVER TB JOSHUA

Former President Jerry John Rawlings has told National Democratic Congress (NDC) core cadres not to direct their frustrations at him but, the sitting President, who he said, “only takes advice from his Nigerian spiritual father, T.B. Joshua.

He told the NDC party foot soldiers at a meeting in Kumasi last week.

“Go and tell the man who sits at the Castle and listens to T.B. Joshua alone about the harsh conditions that he has put you through, the former President was reported to have told the cadres.”

Typical of the former President, the forum offered the platform for what many analysts consider as an avenue to renew his populist commitment to the party’s foot soldiers. And the trick worked, TODAY discovered from the Prempeh Assembly Hall, the venue for the meeting.

The spontaneous approval from the rank and file suggested an instant approval of the Rawlings gimmicks which had in the past succeeded in inciting NDC foot soldiers against especially the immediate past administration of the NPP.

The Rawlings effusion has had a sharp rebuttal from his long-standing critic, Kwesi Pratt Jnr.,  the Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper. Mr. Pratt confirmed the Rawlings’ ranting, on Hot FM Wednesday, when he descended heavily on the former President Rawlings.

“I don’t understand why Ex-President Rawlings would go to the extent of telling party foot soldiers not to complain to him but, ‘go and tell the man who sits at the Castle and listens to T.B. Joshua alone”.

“Jerry Rawlings always wants to remind people of pains; what he did to us that remind us of our pain,” Mr. Kwesi Pratt held. However in a reaction, the Special Aide to the former President, Kofi Adams has described Mr. Pratt’s comments as hypocritical.

He wondered why Mr. Pratt would organise CJA press conferences and demonstrations to criticise the NDC government, but would deny others of the same right.

“I don’t understand Kwesi Pratt. He thinks he has the right to criticise, but he won’t give the same rights to others. I cannot understand and that is why I say that he is only out there to set an agenda for others”, he noted.

Information suggests that the party foot soldiers who have been worried about the hardships still find in the former President an ally and therefore poured out their disappointments at the Mills’ administration to the former President.

Pastor T. B. Joshua

The former President is reported to have poured out his frustration at many NDC forums against the President’s over reliance on the Nigerian Pastor and wondered if the Pastor had the magical wand, he would have helped the Ghanaian President to have found solutions to the myriad of problems facing the NDC administration.

Top NDC notch have expressed similar sentiments against what they consider to be Professor Mills’ obsession with the Nigerian Pastor.

TODAY gathered that this issue has often been discussed at NDC meetings where the party leadership is also said not to be too happy about the President’s over reliance on the Nigerian pastor.

Credible NDC sources hinted TODAY that at one of the president’s meetings with his cabinet, some ministers openly expressed their disapproval at the level at which business of administration was always being marred by Prophet T.B. Joshua’s calls.

At the said meeting, which was being addressed by the President, it was interrupted by T.B. Joshua’s call, which insiders say nearly caused an abrupt end to the cabinet meeting.