The Presidential Candidate of the National Reform Party (NRP), Mr. Goosie Tanor has added his voice to the call by well-meaning people and victims of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government's human rights violations, of which he was a part that the nation needs to reconcile with that past.
He disclosed that it is not because he might be confronted with his role in the future, but due to the guilt he bears for being part of the abuses, saying as far back as 1988 whilst with the government he spent time bailing people from cells.
Goosie said this on "Front Page" an Accra Private Radio Station, Joy FM's current affairs programme last Friday.
Distancing himself from the ruling NDC Party's, which emerged from the PNDC, stand that President Rawlings' verbal pleas for forgiveness is enough, or we start our reconciliation process from the pre- independence, he expressed regrets that though the era recorded great achievements, such as empowering the ordinary person to contribute to the nation's development and bringing about constitutional rule, it can boast of some of the worst forms of deprivations of human rights in the nation's history.
The NRP presidential candidate strongly urged that it is better that the leadership of the nation set the pace for the healing process of the excesses of the PNDC military government which ruled the nation between the period of 1979 and 1991, because Ghanaians can not live in a country of vindictiveness, judging by the sentiments of some of the victims.
During the period, a lot of Ghanaians went missing, others unaccounted for, and property of persons were confiscated for reasons that are untenable today, whilst some were shot for taking a loan of ?50,000.
Though victims and relations of those who suffered might not have come out in the open to demand for compensation,they are said to be secretly harbouring anger against the government.
One person who has come out openly is Mr. Kwabena Agyapong, son of one of the three High Court Judges who were abducted in the dead of the night, murdered and their bodies doused with petrol, set ablaze, along with a retired army officer, in 1982.
Agyapong has organised five press conferences at which he demanded fresh investigation in to the murder of his father and his colleagues, but has fallen on deaf ears.
He holds strongly that justice was not done in the trial of the suspects' accused of the heinous crime, according to him, there are certain nagging unanswered questions that could have altered the outcome of the trial.
Suggesting what could have probably led him to break away from the NDC, Mr. Tanor said in 1992 when the party assumed power under the Fourth Republican Constitution, he realised that the kind of politics practised by the politicians in the party was not for him. "Thank God for the reawakening offered by the Reform" He gave out a sigh of relief.
Refusing to engage President Rawlings in any exchange, he asked the President to put his energy towards saving his legacy from the PNDC, which is being threatened by the last eight years of constitutional rule.
He advised politicians to concentrate on developing policies that would improve the conditions of Ghanaians rather than waste their time attacking personalities.
Goosie described as diversionary attacks on the NRP by the NDC, because due to its character, the NDC did not expect that within such a short period, the NRP could secure such a large following
