The Minority in Parliament has expressed disgust over the omission of the name of the late former President John Evans Atta Mills from his bust at Asomdwee Park in Accra where he was buried.
Speaking to the media in Parliament yesterday, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu said his group and the NDC had taken offence on the said act, adding, “We demand from President Nana Akufo-Addo and his associates such as Koku Anyidoho to do what is right and appropriate, and to remind them that the Office of the former President is an institutional office.”
“It goes beyond the persona of John Evans Atta Mills. So long as our democracy endures, we will produce former Presidents of our Republic,” he stated.
Mr. Iddrisu said the Minority wanted the name of Prof. Mills to be honoured “because he deserves honour. We know that God has honoured him.”
“Our disappointment is that the bust of him does not have his name. If you have doubts go and visit President Nkrumah’s Museum, you will see his bust and it says Kwame Nkrumah, 1909,” he intimated.
The bust of the former President has the inscription: “This was unveiled by His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic and assisted by Samuel Koku Anyidoho, Founder and CEO Atta Mills Institute, Sunday, July 24, 2022, to God Almighty be the Glory,” written beneath it.
And Mr. Iddrisu, who is also the NDC MP for Tamale South, said the supposed omission of his name was “incredibly unacceptable and offensive.”
“It is for his eternal memory that we put his name there so that visitors will know that this is John Evans Atta Mills, the Third President of the Fourth Republic, who passed on in public service, and not who has altered his final sleeping place.
“As I said, the President and his associates must take immediate steps to go and correct that anomaly,” he stated.
“We find it incredibly unacceptable and offensive, and that for the peace of the full nature of the late John Mills, I would have just walked away from here (Parliament) and gone and changed it myself,” he added.
According to him, this would not be in honour of John Evans Atta Mills, intimating that the late President preached peace and that he learned peace from him.
“Either than that ordinarily, we will all walk from here and take it off, and put what is appropriate. Persons who visit Asomdwee Park must know that it is the final resting place,” he asserted.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House