Enoch Teye Mensah
Veteran politician Enoch Teye Mensah, popularly called ET Mensah, has said those who worked for former President Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings were looked down upon but they persevered with him.
He said regardless of how things were perceived, Mr. Rawlings served the nation well and those around him offered their unflinching support to make Ghana better.
E.T Mensah, who was one of the longest-serving ministers under the Rawlings regimes, told GTV at the final funeral rites of the late President in Accra yesterday that Mr. Rawlings was not a bully as he was perceived and was fun to work with.
He said those who were not closer to Mr. Rawlings were always describing those around him as ‘fools’ but the effort put in to ensure Ghana succeeded was there for all to see in the end.
“You might not like him but in the end, you will see that it was worth emulating him,” he said, adding “he exhibited leadership qualities and the principles he held were still there.”
“Papa J did something fantastic which people needed to learn about him. All the people he chose to work with were people who had seen it all before. In leadership, we need to choose strong people who are strong in the head and those are the people he poached,” ET Mensah, who served as Accra Metropolitan Assembly boss and later Sports Minister under Mr. Rawlings, said.
“Those of us who worked around Papa J, they called us fools. They said you guys just allowed him to bully you, but he never bullied anybody,” the former Ningo Prampram MP said.
He said, “It pays to pay your time, you don’t have to rush. We have heard it around and we have seen it, if you rush you will crush and you will never be able to recover,” adding, “Whatever you are doing, there will be a day of reckoning, and when the day comes, what you will use to defend yourself is the life that you led. The young ones are too much in a hurry.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu