Comment: Where is Rawlings?

Former President Jerry John Rawlings has cocooned himself into the warm protection of government even as the conditions of Ghanaians deteriorate dangerously.

Bad governance, which has begotten an infected economy, is taking its toll on Ghanaians. He is no longer the man who used to shout at the top of his voice about bad governance and general iniquities at the seat of government.

He has palpably compromised his so-called values and integrity and, therefore, lost the moral right to do all the things which gave him the colour that he has been spotting all these years.

How times change! The heat, it would seem, has gone off him: he no longer sees evil; he hears no evil and speaks no evil for convenience, of course. For him, a dwindling value of the Cedi and the inability of the average worker to fend for themselves are not issues to get him to scream invectives as usual.

The marriage of convenience between him and those at the helm of the ship of state has robbed him of his voice and offered Ghanaians – especially those who saw in him a principled person ready to stand on the side of the downtrodden – an opportunity to appreciate better who Rawlings really is.

All that glitters, of course, is not gold. Now Ghanaians can downgrade the quality of the man they saw as principled and “Junior Jesus.”

As recent as the last days of the late President John Evans Atta Mills, Rawlings, the former Ghana Air Force officer-turned politician, still maintained the vim with which he attacked the man he had earlier anointed as his successor.

Today, as Ghanaians endure an unprecedented hardship triggered by the mismanagement of the economy, he has withdrawn into his shell, choosing only to speak against former President John Agyekum Kufuor and mundane issues which would not get him crossing paths with his newfound sponsors.

If Rawlings does not appreciate the level of degradation of the economy powered by corruption – which he claimed to have surfaced on the political scene to extirpate – then he is suffering a worrying and self-induced myopia.

As he enters into his last lap in life, let him for once be honest with himself and stand up to be counted among the sincere people of the globe. People in their old age should clean their slates in readiness to meet their Maker.

The ghosts of those who were murdered in the name of a so-called revolution will haunt whoever was responsible for what befell them. Those who were murdered at the Teshie Range have seen their end, but those who ordered their murder know not what awaits them.

Ghana did not endure a fraction of what she is enduring under the current crop of politicians to warrant the coup of the ‘Other Ranks,’ instigated by the likes of Rawlings and others in 1979.

Even as the most sophisticated forms of corruption are taking place with such devastating effects on living standards, Rawlings, like Rip Van Winkle, is deep asleep feigning ignorance. The end of probity and accountability!