Accra, July 22, GNA – Mr Samuel Atta Mills, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) and younger brother of late President John Evans Atta Mills, has urged Ghanaians to focus on the late President’s achievements.
He said it was interesting that after the death of President Mills, so many things were coming up; saying, “I hope and wish that Ghanaians would focus on what he did, instead of how he died, because it is none of anybody’s business”.
Mr Mills made the remarks on the floor of Parliament in his contribution to a statement by Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the MP for North Tongu in honour of the late President as part of activities marking the 10th anniversary of his demise.
Late President Mills was born on 21st July 1944 at Tarkwa in the Western Region and died on July 24th, 2012, in Accra; thus, he is the first Ghanaian President to die in office.
“Mr Speaker, today is my brother’s birthday, and when it comes to his achievements, I think I will allow other people to talk about it,” Mr Mills stated.
Sharing his memory with the late President at the Christiansburg Castle, Osu, Accra, Mr Mills said: “One of the things that strike me when I used to be there with him was that his bedroom in the Castle used to leak whenever it rains”
“And we will always complain to him, brother why don’t you move out of this room? Whenever it rains, we put buckets in his bedroom at the Castle, go and live at home and you can come to work every day”.
He noted that late President Mills would reply to them saying “no, I do not want to inconvenience Ghanaians, because can you believe such a busy road as Spintex road and the President coming to work between 07:30 hours and 08:00 hours with sirens, about 10 and 12 cars and about five motorbikes, blocking the road for the President to come to the office and in the evening also going through the same thing”.
Mr Mills said late President Mills chose to live at the Castle, then the Seat of Government because he did not want to inconvenience Ghanaians.
He said secondly the estate where the late President used to live, Regimanuel Estates was a quiet neighbourhood, and that he did not want to disturb the peace of his friends; “always going with all these cars, going up and down.”
He said thirdly what late President Mills told them was that “can you believe the number of resources that we would use-fuel, security men that will follow him to the house, the amount of money that it would cost the nation? And that the savings that would be made from that, we would use it to build boreholes, or to build schools.”
Source: Ghana News Agency