It was like yesterday, when a certain unknown ‘white’ airman decided to join the list of successful coup makers. On that first attempt of Tuesday, May 15, 1979, he failed to get the “nod” from that goddess called Fate. He was quarantined, and his case was heard.
On Monday June 4, 1979, when his fate and others who blindly followed him were going to be decided by the judge, he bust loose and run wild till evening, when, with the help of other low ranking soldiers, he secured governance of the nation.
This was our own Ghanaman called Jerry John Rawlings, who was later enstooled Togbe Xornametor I (Saviour) at Alakple in the Volta Region on Saturday July 3, 1999. And as his chieftaincy status was slipping slowly into oblivion, he was recently re-enstooled, again in the Volta Region, as Togbuiga Nutifafa I (Senior Peace Chief) by Togbui Sri III, President of the Anlo Traditional Council, in Tadzewu on Saturday October 29, 2016.
Well Togbuiga was certainly not peaceful, and, indeed, he did not come peacekeeping when he was removed from the cage by Captain Boakye Djan that early morning of the first Monday in June 1979.
Very sure of eradicating corruption, malfeasance and all related vices from the nation, he approached the situation like a soldier behind enemy lines, where one’s survival depended on take-no-prisoners, but shoot-to-kill. It was the principle of search-and-destroy.
So it was that some generals in the army were tied to the stakes and shot dead. One had gone for a loan to build his retirement home, and for that, he was found guilty of corruption and killed cold-bloodedly. He had used his position to acquire the loan, and that can be classified a crime? Indeed, what do people use in acquiring loans? Certainly, your status plays an important role.
Among the “many” crimes committed by those slain, included the corruption of overthrowing civilian governments. So Afrifa, who was found clean of any corruption, had to go. Strangely, Ankrah, Harley, Agbo, Serlomey and others were left to run free.
Jerry John had to hand over to a civilian government, and even that, he never went away peacefully. He warned of his return by putting the government on probation.
And return he did, as bloody as before, taking the nation by storm on the last day of December 1981.
If my memories serve me right, I think some bloke called Boham was the last person to be executed for economic crimes. He had done something untoward in the Ghana Commercial Bank, and for that, he had to go ahead to meet, sit, dine and stay with his ancestors.
Rawlings took the reins of governance for the next nineteen years, eleven as a military dictator, and eight as a civilian ruler.
One may have thought that corruption or anything close to that would have been a thing of the past under a Rawlings regime.
Unfortunately, rumours turned into facts, when four of his top lieutenants were reluctantly dragged to the Commission on Human Rights and Justice (CHRAJ) to reveal where they got that magic from, to be able to acquire properties without genuine financial aid. Out of the four, only one passed the test, and the other three were referred to the courts so that they could open their mouths wider and come out with truth or… Or What? Asked Rawlings, who will never accept the fact he was presiding over a corrupt regime, so he issued a Government White Paper to whitewash them. Meaning they had no case to answer, and the Attorney-General will have nothing to do in court.
Then came the big one – that a certain General Abacha, who headed the Anago region of West Africa, a wonderful and amazing countryside called Naija, had dipped his hands into oil money and started distributing it to family and friends for Christmas shopping.
Rawlings landed a cool $5 million, we were told. This allegation made him to huff and puff and blow hot air, licking his finger with his tongue, touching the dirty earth, licking it again, and pointing straight into the Face of God, swearing that he had never even counted any money beyond $50, and so to tell us the truth, he never got any money from Abacha. Maybe those he sent had absconded into exile with that money.
But the way he swore, made people grow more suspicious of him. He never went to Antoa Nyama or his native Nogokpo to swear to the very gods he challenged people to. But he rather swore to the Living God Almighty, who was noted to be slow to anger, and abundant with mercy. A mischievous mass server also swore that he saw Rawlings kneeling before his parish priest, and heard him say: “Bless me Father, for I have sinned…it is about forty years since my last confession…errmmm…I lied big time.” Unfortunately, since he was hushed away by the priest, he did not hear what Rawlings lied about. It could be anything, after all Rawlings was a man, a real handsome man, tall and thick and very fair, and what more, he was the president and very rich.
It took him eighteen years to remember he did take some money from Abacha, and it was $2 million, and not $5 million. And, even after this admission, he still swore that he was not a corrupt person. But which divine being did he swear to this time, nobody knows.
What is concerning Ghanaians today is that one of Rawlings’ wards who had embezzled GH¢51 million of tax payers’ money will not, in fact, never return the loot. Not that he did any work and was overpaid, he just dipped his hands in the state coffers and struck his chest that he had done it, and no one could do anything to him. When Rawlings heard this, he fumed and called his son, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, a thief. This angered Woyome’s lawyers, who did not take that citation lightly, so who am I to call Woyome a thief?
The matter went to court, and we thought the Supreme Court decided that Alfred should return the loot. He pleaded for more time, maybe he has to count the money and be sure it amounted to the GH¢51 million Ghanaians alleged he had stolen.
When asked when he was going to comply with the Supreme Court judgment, he murmured something like, by December 2015.
The next thing we heard was that the Attorney-General declared that she was tired of this Woyome casem and because she was losing sleep on something that never was commensurate to her salary, she decided not to go to court again. After all, she was not being paid any overtime after this additional responsibility was added to her job.
Folks, in all seriousness, what this means is that Ghanaians will have to forget about the return of the stolen millions, and get used to seeing Woyome ran around freely and with full protection from the state security, using the same taxpayers’ money he took.
What this means is that the revolution Rawlings embarked upon thirty-seven years ago is now meaningless. It is dead and lying in the 37 Hospital morgue! In fact, it holds no relevance in the lives of Ghanaians anymore, since, if almost forty years ago, it was a crime to go for a loan to build your house; if almost forty years ago commercial centers like the central market of Makola could be blown down and destroyed; if some forty years ago, a hardworking citizen called Buckman could have his house blasted to the ground, for the only crime of being friends with people in authority; yes, if almost forty years ago it was a high crime to be rich and wealthy, and today a protégé of the tradition which shouted “probity, accountability and social justice’, will take state money of that magnitude and be allowed to walk and ran around freely, then, indeed, that revolution was a great scam and gross deceit.
A crime of that magnitude could have attracted the mass killing of family and friends as well and not only the suspected criminal in 1979. So, after all, killing people for economic crimes could still not eradicate economic crimes.
But, we should have seen this coming: In 1979, some monies were paid into state coffers by tax dodgers. The incoming president was told he had good money as working capital, but President Limann swore there were no such monies, and kept swearing and demanding for explanations to his grave.
Then Rawlings went back on his word and overthrew a civilian government, a crime he killed people for, and today, he is walking around freely and being enstooled chief on two different occasions in the same traditional area.
Rawlings, who made the wealthy look like a plague, and people attacked the rich, is today living comfortably in wealth.
Was this the revolution people were killed for? Did Rawlings two-time the people of Ghana and had ulterior motives behind his two coups?
Today, he is bold enough to call the sitting president, and the ruling NDC, an association of corrupt practitioners, but the question is where did this current batch of NDC members come from, if during Rawlings’ time no one in the NDC was ever corrupt?
When people suspected that he was administering corrupt regimes, he always jumped and screamed his innocence, and the innocence of his party and members. Even when people question how a party guru called Obed Asamoah could lose ¢100 million in his bedroom and would not notice immediately, until after months, and where at all did he acquire that money, Rawlings called such people detractors, who had no basis accusing an innocent man.
So, who is he blaming now, if this NDC is alleged to be corrupt? It pays to be truthful to say that not all members of the NDC are corrupt, but, of course, no party can be said to be free of some petty corrupt people. In fact, corruption cannot be eradicated from the surface of the earth, let alone from Ghana, but to always say that “as for you and yours, you led a corruption free administration,” when the evidence proves otherwise, is to be ignorant or untruthful of your own actions and ways.
The revolution that killed people for corruption had now hanged itself from the ceiling, and let Rawlings not call any one corrupt, because his revolution had institutionalised corruption. He should spare the NDC to walk the way they want to, because he guided them to take their first steps. If the current NDC is corrupt, then Rawlings is the most corrupt.
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