Shut up – Mills’ family tells Nduom

Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom must “shut up” and stop digging into President John Evans Atta Mills’ death, the late president’s brother Samuel Atta Mills has said.

Responding to a recent call by Dr Nduom’s Progressive People’s Party (PPP) at a rally in Accra for the government to publicise Prof Mills’ autopsy report if President John Mahama and the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) really had nothing to do with it, Mr Atta Mills said: “It is nobody’s business.

“The guy (Prof Mills) has passed on. Whatever we put out, people are going to challenge us. Why don’t we let him lie in peace, let’s move on. We know what killed him, we have the autopsy report; what is the big deal? How come Papa Kwesi Nduom didn’t raise it four years ago when he passed away and he waits in an election time? Is this how we run our elections?”
He told Naa Dedei Tettey during an interview on 12Live on Class91.3FM: “What he [Nduom] should understand – from what my brother said – was: ‘dzi wo fie asem’ – mind your own business.

“Papa Kwesi Nduom, his father was a good friend of my father’s. His father is dead, the same way my father is dead. Why doesn’t he publish his father’s autopsy? Why doesn’t he do that? …Yes my brother was a public figure. What do you want us to say? No matter what you say, it’s going to be a different story. The man is dead, let him rest in peace. Papa Kwesi Nduom shouldn’t be the one peddling this.

“Look, the fact that we are peaceful doesn’t mean that you can take us for a ride. Papa Kwesi Nduom, this is a warning to him: he needs to shut up about always asking questions about who killed Prof? Now, if he keeps on saying that then it means he has some information. If he keeps on doing that his clan will have to come and explain to our clan what happened. My advice to Papa Kwesi Nduom is this: ‘If you don’t want a dog to lick you in the face, you don’t play with it.’ I don’t know why Papa Kwesi Nduom is making it his crusade. If he doesn’t shut up about that, I will make it my project [to expose him]…” Mr Mills said.

On July 24, 2012, Prof Mills became the first Ghanaian leader to die in office, but with the exact cause of death withheld from the public, speculations have been rife that there may have been foul play in the former law professor’s passing which occurred only six months to the 2012 polls. Prof Mills’ health had deteriorated by then and he had been considered too weak to endure the physical demands of campaigning.

At the PPP’s first national rally at the Kawukudi Park, the party’s General Secretary, Murtala Mohammed, made a fresh call to the NDC to release the autopsy report.

“If you didn’t kill Mills and if you are not happy Mills died, produce the autopsy report. We are challenging John Mahama to produce the autopsy report of [late] President Mills. The Central Region people here, I want you to listen to me: if John Mahama comes to your region, tell him to produce the autopsy report,” he urged.

Mr Mohammed’s comments came within the same week that PPP founder and flag bearer Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, at a rally in Cape Coast, had said some NDC officials put on a public show of sorrow with Prof Mills’ demise but privately rejoiced over his passing and said it had paved the way for their electoral triumph in 2012.

He told the crowd at a rally held on Thursday September 15: “Mills was our kinsman and he became the president. Some people criticised and attacked him until he died. And some of the NDC people themselves thanked God that Mills died. Is that not strange? And after his death they came back here to tell us to replace him with another person from the Central Region.

“After all that, they go about provoking us that if Mills had not died, the NDC wouldn’t be in government today. … It appears as though they deliberately pushed him to the seat so they can commit the wrongs behind him.”