I Broke The News - President Mills Is Dead

Dear President Mills, I wrote you several open letters when you lived and reigned over Ghana. When You were alive, I met and shook hands with you only once. Now that you are gone, it�s been one year already, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Many things have changed since your departure which gripped the entire nation for some time. President Mahama is ruling now. Of course he had your blessings. I remember that particular afternoon of your departure of July 24th 2012. At the time, I worked for XFM, a private radio station run by Mr. Herbert Mensah. The man run down the stairs into the radio station studio shouting loudly �Sacut, the president is dead�. I went for the computer, and hit on social media instantly whiles he took to the microphone. We broke the news of your demise through the radio station. And that experience has left an indelible mark. I still don�t understand how come I was in the right position to make your death announcement on social media first in Ghana. I don�t want to believe it was a coincidence. I have since your departure, met, spoken and listened to people who were very close to you whiles you were in office. I have learned many new things about you. One of the things I learned about you after your death is that you read the letters I wrote to you. I didn't realize that - at first. I know now because some of the people who were very close to you told me. They told me you wept on one occasion upon reading one of my letters due to half-truths, pure lies and biting lyrics laced in it. When I heard that for the first time, I was deeply saddened and full of remorse though I did not weep. To be truthful I did not come to your funeral partly because of guilt for some of the things I said about you whiles you were alive. But also because I don�t like joining the crowd so I have been following from a distance. It has given me a chance to reflect on many of those things. And I realize that indeed, I was unfair to you in many of my writings and utterances. On many occasions, I wrote things about you, and to you without really knowing for a fact if what I am saying is true or not. Other times, I based what I said to you in those letters and articles on hear say. I was consumed by an evil genius who just wanted to discredit you by all means. There were times I wrote about you purely out of malice. Upon reflection, it is obvious to me I had no basis in making many allegations against you or making aspersions on you. Now that you are gone, I know better, I cannot undo the damage of my misadventure. What I can do is to openly admit � and show remorse � as I am doing now, not to say that I have suddenly abandoned by views on you but to show that I am human and my actions can be manipulated by irresistible forces but who is not afraid or ashamed to admit his weakness. Even though I feel sorry about some of the things I said to you and about you when you were alive, and the biting lyrics with which I said it, I still want you to understand that I really never admired you. I don�t think you succeeded in your political endeavors. Many people will be offended by this plane opinion - understandably because they think opposite. And many of these people who admired, loved and praised you hate me so much today as you are gone simply because of our diverse conclusions about you. As for me, I don�t hate them. I see them as my brothers and sisters who disagree with me as you always preached whiles alive. Unfortunately, some of your disciples are not practicing what you preached. They hate me bitterly because they saw you weep over some of my malicious letters. Indeed, they read them for themselves. And even though they all say that you were a forgiving person, some of them fail to learn from your virtues for which reason they can�t forgive some of us. But if what they say about you being a truly peaceful person is true, I know you will forgive me � even from the ancestral world. If you were here today, I would have physically come to kneel down and hold your legs. The good thing is that there are a few good men among those people who worked with you, and who you left behind. There is hope we can make amends. God be with you till we meet again. Amenga � Etego SaCut � Multi � media journalist, political activist, broadcaster and ghost writer