Ghana’s former President, Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings has commended Ghanaian women for the role they have played in the political and economic development of the country since 1979. President Rawlings said: “We could not have achieved as much as we did without the women as our backbone.” He was speaking at an awards and dinner dance to climax the third conference of West African Women in Leadership at the Ghana International Conference Centre on Friday. Former First Lady and President of the 31st December Women’s Movement, Nana Konadu was honoured by the Conference with an award for her exemplary role in women’s development, creation of grassroots structures for women and serving as the mother of the nation. President Rawlings also took on the government saying he was hopeful that it would wake up to the fact that destroying the mood or fabric of our people through intimidation will make it difficult to ignite their courage to fight the 2012 elections. The former President said: “Whenever we have timidity at certain parts of government or party machinery and they feel intimidated by the courage of the people then what they end up doing is that they begin to deflate the fire and the energy that they will need to cross some of the most difficult obstacles.” He stated that: “If we do not make and recognise that women in Africa are as much entitled to the freedom and justice that we are claiming for ourselves I am afraid we will always fall behind and not be able to make the rapid progress that we should be making. President Rawlings said as soon as women washed their hands off the NDC because “we got careless and irresponsible, failing to recognise what they (women) had done that is when we lost our first election.”