The family of the late President John Evans Atta Mills, has hinted that they will seek legal means available to stop the Atta Mills Institute from operating with the name and image of the late president.
According to the family, the institute established by an aide of the late president, Koku Anyidoho was neither sanctioned nor authorised by them.
The Head of Family and Senior Brother of the late president, Dr Cadman Mills, hinted at the 10th Anniversary Commemorative Lecture organised by the JEA Mills Memorial Heritage in Accra.
He insisted that the institute did not represent the hopes, values, ideals, ideology and aspirations of the late president saying “in my capacity as oldest living sibling of Professor John Evans Atta Mills, as the person whom Atta Mills designated in his Will to be executed and also the custodian of his legacy and now as the Ebusuapayin (family head).
“The family has decided we will contact our solicitor to ensure they explore all avenues to stop the institute from operating with his name and image and the recent commissioning of the Asomdwee Park (where the late president was buried) which was carried out in collaboration with the Coastal Development Authority and the Atta Mills Institute, does not symbolise the late president.
“Apart from the name on the tombstone, which was spelt wrongly, everything at the park did not stand for the late President Mills,” Dr Mills decried.
Private Legal Practitioner, Tsatsu Tsikata described the late president as incorruptible personality whose form of government took the plights of Ghanaians into consideration and described President Atta Mills as charisma and aroma of high standard of integrity, peace maker and strongman who always stood his words to address challenges of the ordinary person.
He urged the youth to exhibit positive traits of the late president in their endeavour and the nation needed such personalities to enhance socioeconomic development.
Ernestina Naadu Mills, also described her late husband as one who led a quiet private life until higher national duty came calling him, adding that “my husband was battered and bruised on the battlefield of politics, but he held firm to his personal values of truth, simplicity, honesty and abided the respect of all”.
Professor JEA Mills was appointed first as Acting Commissioner for the then Internal Revenue Service (IRS) now Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in 1988 and confirmed as the Commissioner in 1989 and was Vice President from 1997 to 2001 and became the President in 2009 after the historic 2008 election but passed on July 24, 2012 while in Office.
BY BERNARD BENGHAN
