For well over two decades, JJ Rawlings has been strutting Ghana’s political stage presenting himself as the defender of the “common man”, paragon of virtue, advocate for “accountability and probity”, “father of Ghanaian democracy”, and so on. A close look at this man and his record, however, reveals a hypocrite who may well top the list of modern-day hypocrites in the Guinness Book of Records. Mr. Rawlings should be the last person to accuse anyone of being unjust and corrupt. We shall henceforth make it our business to break the “culture of silence” surrounding Rawlings’ true character, so that the youth in Ghana, who did not live through Rawlings’ two decades of deceit and corruption, will come to know the man for who he is.
We had previously restrained ourselves from taking on Mr. Rawlings for his incessant ranting about justice and accountability, in the hope and expectation that he might have a reality check and retreat into a quiet and dignified retirement. Unfortunately, self-reflection and reality seem alien to Mr. Rawlings’ nature. Thus he persists in his deception. His persistent noises about justice and accountability have finally compelled us to take him on directly and straighten the record about him and his years in power for the benefit of the youth in Ghana and posterity.
This dichotomy between the truth as it stands and the lies Rawlings continues to spew to Ghanaians, form the basis of our challenge to him to debate the issues surrounding justice and corruption with regards to the administrations of both the NPP and the NDC. This invitation to debate is open, and shall remain open until Mr. Rawlings accepts it. Until he does, we call on him to desist from making further wild claims on justice and corruption clearly designed to throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians, especially the youth who are not privy to the atrocities he committed while leading Ghana for 19 years.
We also challenge him to use this period for constitutional amendment to Ghana’s constitution to remove the indemnity clauses he surreptitiously inserted in the constitution to shield himself from prosecution for the crimes and corrupt practices he is guilty of during his reign, so Ghanaians may have their day in court to prove to the world that after all he is not a man of integrity as he preaches.
We further challenge the Ghanaian media to hold the former president accountable for his deceptive utterances. His penchant for using a one-way communication format to deceive Ghanaians cannot continue. Either he debates an NPP member on the issues of justice and corruption, or desists from spreading lies. This is a put-up-or-shut-up challenge, and Rawlings must choose one.
In the mean time, we shall lay out certain facts for the record. JJ Rawlings was not a disadvantaged youth as those he continues to exploit for his selfish political advantage. He was privileged to attend Achimota Secondary School, an elite high school in Ghana. However, due to his waywardness and disrespect for rules did not do well in high school.
Prior to shooting himself to the helm of the nation through a bloody coup, Mr. Rawlings had not been successful in his private life. By his own account, it was very difficult for him to afford three square meals; he had decorated his living room with seats taken from an air force plane.
Mr. Rawlings enlisted in the air force, a noble and respected profession, but he did not do well in the air force either. It is recorded that he repeatedly failed his promotional exams until the late General Yaw Boakye, the man he later executed, had pity on him and had him promoted. Because his earlier failures in life have created a psychological void within him, he has a deep-seated hatred towards people he perceives as more successful than him.
Mr. Rawlings has always taken the poor downtrodden masses for granted and has used them for his own parochial self-interest. Rawlings shot himself into Ghana’s political scene as a communist dictator and ruled amidst the worst human rights abuses in Ghana’s history. He reluctantly converted to accept the ideals of democratic dispensation and tone down his anti American diatribe only after the fall of the Soviet Union and when communism was disintegrating worldwide, while pressure from the home front was mounting vigorously. Now this hypocrite wants to cast himself on the World stage as the father of Ghana’s democracy.
As a communist dictator, Rawlings pretended he cared for the interest of the “common man”, but the record of his reign from the time of AFRC through PNDC to NDC shows clearly that whilst he personally progressed from rags to become one of the richest men in the Africa, the lot of the “common Man” in Ghana did not improve. It is important to note that Rawlings has never pursued any profession other than running our dear country. That means his ascent from rags to riches resulted exclusively from his tenure in government. Thus unless his normal salary and other due emoluments can mathematically add up to his current wealth, it is conclusive that he amassed wealth illegally while in government.
As an example, he sold state owned assets to his wife and cronies but no substantive programs were initiated to improve the lot of the “common man.” Because he has never been successful at any business or profession, he exhibits no qualms whatsoever in destroying what businesses others have worked hard to build. Rawlings has ordered the destruction of completed hotels and other established businesses such as Apino Soap Manufacturing simply because their owners were perceived to be sympathizers of an opposition party.
We are seriously taking Mr. Rawlings on for his call for justice. The scale of justice is balanced; therefore a call for justice for national redemption and reconciliation cannot be slanted or tilted towards one side. It is therefore hypocritical that Mr. Rawlings is calling for justice into only Kufour’s administration when he has shielded himself with indemnity clauses in the nation’s constitution to protect himself from the heinous crimes he has committed, crimes which in some cases are worst than those committed by the late General Idi Amin of Uganda.
We support the call to have justice into the Dagbon incident that led to the late Yaa Na’s death. But the search for justice must not be used as a tool to prosecute one’s perceived political opponents. We are calling for a balanced justice on both sides of the conflict. Justice must not be sought only in the late Yaa Na’s death. We are also calling for justice in the cases of Mr. BB Bismarck, the late Aburi chief who was abducted and killed under mysterious circumstances under JJ Rawling’s watch. Similarly, we call for justice in the case of the abduction and murder of the Supreme Court justices, one of whom was pregnant. Their burnt bodies were discovered on the beach and so far, Rawlings has not been held accountable.
We are calling for justice for the families of thousands of innocent Ghanaians who have been listed as “missing” under Rawlings’ regime. We want to remind Mr. JJ Rawlings that there is no statute of limitation on extra judicial killings and mass murder. No matter how long it may take we shall surely seek justice either at home or in international court of justice. Indeed the quest for justice must begin with the three former heads of state who he executed for crimes never proven.
It is ironic and hypocritical that Mr. Rawlings is constantly labeling the past Kufour’s administration as being corrupt without facts to prove his allegation. Whereas the biggest corruption scandals in Ghana’s political history happened during Rawling’s regimes. Mabey and Johnson happened under his watch with President Mills as his Vice President. This has been investigated, proven and tried by an impartial third country – the Great Britain. Scancem, the putrid corrupt practices in those times shamefully occurred under the holier-than-thou Rawlings regime. The recent allegation of five million-dollar bribes to JJ and his wife from President Mills’ castle while he is pointing fingers at others as being corrupt is a clear exhibition of Rawling’s hypocrisy.
As alarming as these are, they only amount to a scratching of the surface when it comes to human rights abuses and corruption that Rawlings presided over during his 19-year reign. We have a “book” on all that Rawlings is guilty of, and we are prepared to bare it out to the Ghanaian public during the proposed debate. Ghanaians shall be confused no longer by a hypocrite. If Mr. Rawlings truly believes in the NPP culpability to corruption and injustice, this is his chance to prove it once and for all to Ghanaians. If he fails to accept this open invitation, he would have lost any iota of credibility and moral authority to call any other person corrupt or unjust.
WE AWAIT RAWLINGS’ RESPONSE.
NPP-USA