Former President Jerry John Rawlings has blamed faceless individuals within the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) for a petition to investigate him over some $2 million he received from Sani Abacha many years ago.
Describing the petition to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) as ‘vile stuff’, the former President said the push to probe him is part of an elaborate scheme to misrepresent and sully his reputation.
The leader of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), Henry Hubert Lartey, petitioned the EOCO and CHRAJ to investigate the former President who has confessed to receiving $2 million from the former Nigerian head of state.
For over a decade, ex-President Rawlings had maintained a tight-lip on the donation said to be part of Mr Abacha’s loot.
However, during an interview with the Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria recently, ex-President Rawlings admitted that he received the money from Sani Abacha in 1998, but denied that the amount was $5 million as some have alleged.
“About three days before his [Mr Lartey] drama I got information that he was going to be financially rewarded for what he did and incidentally he was instigated not by people in the opposition,” former President Rawlings said.
“Why are people worried about the level of integrity we’ve tried to maintain? We say we are Christians; we swear on the bible, Muslims on the Koran; I’d like to invite people like him (Lartey) that we go traditional as well. That we invite the white man’s technology (lie detector) to also come and verify the truthfulness, the integrity of my word. And for him to be simply asked who paid him to do what he did?” former President Rawlings adds.
The former President made the remark when a group of queen mothers called on him at his office in Accra last week.
The queen mothers, led by Mamaga Noviode of Sogakope, were at the former President’s office to register their concerns over poor quality of political discourse and abusive language thrown at eminent persons in the run up to the December elections.
The former President also asked the queen mothers to support calls for a free and fair election to guarantee the peace in the country.
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