Ghana is not worth dying for - Ex MI Boss

THE HEAD of Military Intelligence in the Dr. Hilla Limann administration, Lt Col. Annor Odjidja, has stated in the United Kingdom that he is not convinced Ghana is a nation worth dying for, and would therefore rather stay outside all his life than return to Ghana and contribute his quota towards national development.

Col. Annor Odjidja, now domiciled in Milton Keynes (UK), went into exile in the heat of the December 31 coup d’etat in which, like the June 4, 1979 mutiny, generals and senior military officers of the Ghana Armed Forces, tucked their tails in between their legs, instead of picking the gun just like some of their fellow soldiers had done and fled the barracks, using the Labadi cemetery road and alleys leading to Cantonments.

The former Military Intelligence capo who was virtually left alone to fight the army of Rawlings and Kojo Tsikata, “advised himself” when the going got tough, and escaped with the help of undercover agents to Lome, Togo and from there to the United Kingdom where he became a political refugee until he was assimilated into the British society, living on British government income support.

“I am not returning to Ghana today or tomorrow. I think I’m okay over here. Ghana is not worth dying for. I don’t trust our politicians, and I have little confidence in the current administration,” he is reported to have told a fellow exile.

The former intelligence officer was behind the trailing of Jerry Rawlings soon after the handing over by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) to Limann in September 1979.

He is also reported to have provided sufficient and credible intelligence report to the Limann administration, regarding moves to destabilize the country.

Dr. Hilla Limann and his sector ministers ignored the warning to their own shock and agony, catapulting the nation into a political cataclysm for twenty gruelling years in which Rawlings and his boys became masters of all they surveyed till the 2000 elections in which they were given a resounding shock.

Intelligence sources at the Support Services of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) Burma Camp, Accra revealed that only a handful of intelligence officers within the Ghana Armed Forces could be relied on at the time of the December 31 coup to fight off the coup makers who were made up of young, radical “boys’ company” boys and disgruntled officers in the army who were on their way home for “one offence or the other.”

High profile exiles not yet ready to return home to Ghana include, Maj. Boakye Djan, key player in the AFRC and the junta’s number two man as well as Sgt. Alolga Akata-Poree who was put under house arrest in the early days of the December 31st coup for attempting to destabilize the PNDC administration.

He was later forced into exile where he is rumoured to be living comfortably, courtesy the same forces that necessitated his flight into exile.