Former President Jerry John Rawlings appears to be unremorseful about his disparaging comments against Former Presidents John Agyeikum Kufour and John Dramini Mahama.
Contrary to an apology letter issued from his office apologising for the comments and retracting same, the former Military leader who has since been heavily backlashed argued that his apology wouldn’t have been needed if the truth was not bastardised by “babies with sharp teeth”.
A visibly angry Rawlings ‘spat fire’ at the so-called ‘babies with sharp teeth’ whom he says have made it a point to continuously denigrate his image and portray him in a bad light for standing up for the truth, fighting corruption and keeping firm on his beliefs.
Mr Rawlings is reported to have suggested during a meeting with some elders and chiefs from Mepe in the Volta Region last Tuesday that former presidents Mr Kufuor and John Mahama are evil and did not deserve to be in Heaven.
He had called the two ex-presidents corrupt saying, “I know with my integrity when I die, I will go to heaven but when I see these corrupt leaders, I will ask permission from God and flog them.”, a comment he has since apologized for.
But speaking at the 2nd Revolutionary Lecture Series, held in his honor, Mr. Rawlings who sought to justify his comment narrated how Voltarians were schemed against by the Kufuor led administration.
“Many years ago, after we left office, the government attempted to regionalize recruitment. In the Volta Region, they went and recruited 40 people. When they registered their names, a little while later, every single one of them was sent, let me tell you what that was, they had employed 40 well-qualified students, took their certificates and attached it to the certificates of certain illiterates in another region. That is what the babies with the sharp teeth should have said and not just the silly nonsense he put out which was meaningless, that nobody could understand.
On former President Mahama, Rawlings revealed how efforts by him to acquire a piece of land close to a water source for farming to help reduce poverty in the Volta Region was frustrated.
“As a small boy, I remember my granny used to talk about, it’s unfortunate but how people used to stir Banku, prepare some hot water with salt and they could use it as soup, you dip the Banku in the water and eat, I never thought this kind of poverty would still be found in my country. When I heard the Member of Parliament campaigning around the river area where I stay, I was talking about this kind of impoverishment, poverty, which is just not right that people should still be eating this kind of thing. Not long after, a gentleman, Mr. Klutse, discovered an attempt at some huge plantation by Ghadaffi’s people, somehow it didn’t work out and the land had been left and abandoned, he got in touch with me, I said let’s get in touch with the government so they can gather the famers and fisherfolk to plough it and cultivate something on it, it’s a shame that we should be in this community and something like this should be happening under our own government, go and read and see how the baby with the sharp tooth presented this story as well…., eventually, some people among them took it“, he said.
