NANA KONADU’S INCREDIBLE REVELATION
Former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman, has revealed that after the June 4, coup, Major (rtd) Boakye Djan was niggling that he was against the handing over to civilian rule.
According to Nana Konadu, soon after the announcement that there was going to be a handing over to civilian rule, Mr. Boakye Djan, stealthily, came to her when Flt. Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings was in Cuba and asked her to convince her husband that the handing over of power to civilian rule would cause confusion.
“Soon after the announcement that there was going to be a handing over, Boakye Djan came to see me in the house and said that this handing over that they are going do would cause confusion. At that time Rawlings was in Cuba.”
“He said that they needed to hold on to power for a while because things were scattered and that the country had to get stable before handing over. I remember telling him that, now you are not afraid to come to me. I said that because when things were hot I stopped him one day and he swerved and sped off.”
The ex-First Lady made these revelations during The Chronicle’s interview with Ex-President Rawlings a couple of weeks ago.
Nana Konadu added that Boakye Djan told her that he had spoken to Joshua Hamidu and that Hamidu was also in agreement that they should put the hand over on hold, a claim that she said later turned out to be false.
“I asked whether it was right and my husband said that I was not in the fire”, she added.
The ex-First Lady also noted that Boakye Djan was always complaining that he was not happy that even though he was the AFRC spokesman, Joshua Hamidu, was the one handling all the issues and doing a lot of the talking.
But Ex-President Rawlings said that he could understand the position of Boakye Djan to put the hand over on hold because things were hot in those days.
He, however, added that the purpose of the insurrection was not to hold on to power but to clean the system and hand over to civilian rule. “That is why the handing over had to take place” But Mr. Boakye in a separate interview with The Chronicle said that he never kicked against the hand over but rather he was the one who led the hand over.
“I was the one who led the handing over. The Generals had run foul of the law and we wanted to hold them accountable; that is why we staged the coup. Tell Rawlings and his wife that I know how to fight but I don’t know how to hide and that is why I, Boakye Djan, in spite of what I have done and what I have not done, I haven’t been arrested and put into prison before,” he said.
According to him, he is a democrat and that even as a cadet officer he realized that the country’s democracy and constitution at that time could not be taken for granted.
Mr. Boakye Djan said that the AFRC finished their job and even had sometime left so he saw no reason why he would have said that it was not ripe for a hand over to civilian rule.
JJ’s PAKISTAN TRIP AND THE COUP
Speaking about his trip to Pakistan around the time the uprising was being planned, the ex-President told The Chronicle that in the heat of the tension in the country and in the middle of the maneuverings to execute the coup, he was posted to Pakistan on an instructors’ course.He said on his way to Pakistan he passed through Switzerland to monitor events from there, adding that before he left, he gave his money to the RECCE ‘boys’ who shared it.
“I was monitoring the situation in Switzerland because the situation was too hot. Some of our guys were picked up in the course of planning. I am not an adventurer, there was a very volatile situation in the country,” he said.
He said as a result of the cold in Pakistan, he suffered a severe pain in his arm and could not have any flight lessons so he reported ill and asked to be brought back to Ghana to accomplish his mission of stemming the tide in the country.
Asked if he reported ill just to get the opportunity to come back to Ghana to stage a coup, Mr. Rawlings said that was one of the reasons. He added that he had left behind a wife, a family and a beloved country that was waiting to explode.
Mr. Rawlings said at that time one Brigadier W. W. Bruce Konuah was the head of the Ghana mission in Pakistan.
He recollected that he briefed Brigadier Konuah about the turbulent situation in Ghana at the time and the fact that he needed to come back to play his role in salvaging the country. Mr. Rawlings said when he was finally allowed to fly back to Ghana, he was seen off at the airport by Brigadier Konuah and the immediate past Chief of Staff, Brigadier Akafia.
He said the two officers gave him hope that they appreciated the trouble that was looming in the country.
THE BANDAGE
According to the Ex-President, the popular claim that the bandage, which he spotted on June 4, was as a result of an injury he sustained when he was being released from custody was not true.
He said it was rather an injury he sustained after vaulting from a military vehicle when he and his troops came under fire in between 5BN and the RECCE.
“King Boso was the one who was driving that vehicle. I vaulted to the left of the vehicle and a bullet rocked where I was and one of our men was killed. It was not my nail, it was my palm,” he said.
