Chris Asher Snr testifies at NRC

Professor Chris Asher (Snr), one time editor of the Palaver, and the defunct Western Tribune newspapers, who had been in exile since 1982, on Thursday testified before the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), and prayed the Commission for the de-confiscation of his assets and frozen bank accounts.

He said the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) Decree No. 3, seized and confiscated all his assets including his houses, printing press then known as Unipress International Limited, which was converted into Nsamankow Press, where he said some of the printing machines were sent to then Graphic Corporation, and the rest later stolen. Professor Asher who registered his dissatisfaction of staying abroad for more than 20 years, also prayed the Commission to make it possible for his return home safely and permanently to practice his profession.

He said he went into exile just four days after the December 31 1981 coup that brought the Provisional National Defence Council, because he had information that soldiers would pick him from his house and kill him.

Witness said the information indicated that the soldiers were instructed to chop his legs after killing him, send him to the Broadcasting House and show his body on the national television network.

Witness is an elder brother of ex-soldier and Lawyer Chris Asher, whose testimony at the Commission some months earlier had generated public controversy over his eligibility to appear before the Commission, because of having broken jail while allegedly serving a term for murder.

Prof Asher said he lectures Journalism in a number of schools abroad, hated military coups, and described as propaganda, a report purported to have been carried by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that he had apologized to Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, leader of the December 31 1981 coup for campaigning against the coup. "I've not apologized; I will not, I must not. This is my first time of hearing this information," Prof Asher said. Mr Christian Apppiah Agyei, a Member of the Commission, who wanted to know the truth in that story had earlier remarked that he was one of the secret supporters of that campaign, after which Prof Asher retorted: "I have no regrets, I will do it again if I have another opportunity." "Soldiers come to power with AK 47 on the table, corruption under the table and executions at the side of the table", witness said.

According to the Witness, the animosity between him and Flt Lt Rawlings, leader of the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) began when he (Prof Asher), serialized a story on the atrocities and corruption of the then AFRC.

Professor Asher who said in the course of a post military coup investigative journalism, he came across Lt Okakoi, Sgt Korda and two others who played active roles in the events after the 1979 coup.

Witness said Flt Lt Rawlings who had earlier agreed to grant him an interview delayed, and swerved him when he went for the interview at a rendezvous in his (Flt Lt Rawlings') wife's residence in Accra.

Witness said he carried a series of reports on information given to him by Lt Okakoi and Sgt Korda every week for one year, and indicated that he had information that Flt Lt Rawlings had warned that if there were a change of government, he (Asher) would be the first person to die.

Professor Asher said that he had prepared himself with some arms to fight any soldier that came to his house, but he later changed his mind and fled outside the country for the sake of his children whom he said were sent to Cape Coast to spend the holidays.

He said after fleeing the country, he went first to the United States and then the United Kingdom, and later travelled to some countries in Africa, but the then government of Ghana instructed its embassies in those countries that he was a dangerous person.

The Witness said he had information after his exit that the soldiers who could not find him at his home fired his house, and killed also indiscriminately all the domestic animals in the house. He said soldiers also pulled down a house belonging to him at Agona Nsaba and looted it. Professor Asher said despite a petition to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), after which the CHRAJ recommended a de-confiscation in 1996, but nothing had been returned to him. He said the name of the Ghanaian Chronicle and Palaver newspapers were his franchise, and added " when the dust has settled down my next 'palaver" will be with the Chronicle and the Palaver.

According to him the name Palaver, which signifies troubles, was the name he gave to his newspaper in Accra, which succeeded the banned Takoradi based Western Tribune, which the military government banned in 1968.

He said the late Col. I K Acheampong, one-time Western Regional Minister invited him, after which he was put into custody and for one year in the Sekondi Prisons and released in April 1969, without any charge.

He said he subsequently moved to Accra and established his paper.

Witness described himself as "a walking pharmacist' who took 16 tablets a day, said living in exile disintegrated his family, and added the he had not seen his last two kids since he went into exile.