NDC prints Paraphernalia’s for June 4

The cost of preparations for the celebration of this year’s June 4 uprising, according to conservative estimates sourced from the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), the managers and the printers of materials for the programme, runs into millions of Ghana cedis.

Today, discovered that the printing of Ghana and NDC flags, umbrellas, cups and badges all embossed in NDC colours with June 4 symbols and inscriptions on them were all done by the NDPC.

The materials were picked from the offices of the NDPC on Monday, May 1, 2010 to the residence of the former Minister of National Security in the Kufuor administration, Francis Poku, which now serves as the temporary abode of the Rawlingses to be lifted to Tamale Police Park, the venue for the celebration.

On Friday, June 4, 2010 former President Jerry John Rawlings will attempt re-enacting the June 4, 1979 uprising at the Tamale Police park in the Northern Regional It will be exactly 31 years since some junior officers of the Ghana Armed Forces, led by Captain Boakye Gyan, overthrew the Supreme Military Council II junta of General Frederick William Kwesi Akufo, in a bloody coup d’état in the early wet hours of that fateful Monday.

Rawlings who was placed in prison custody for an abortive uprising on May 15, 1979, was released by the Boakye Djan-led mutineers to head the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council military regime to administer the affairs of the country for 112 days before handing over to the Third Republican civilian administration of the People’s National Party (PNP) headed by Dr Hilla Limann.

The Supreme Court might have outlawed the celebration of June 4, an occasion which constitutes one of the most turbulent periods in Ghana’s political history; but to Rawlings and his adherents, June 4 is a day worth defying the ruling of the highest court of the land to commemorate, because of this principled stance of probity and accountability.

And with his party in power, the celebration has assumed a popular participation reminiscent of the Rawlings PNDC and NDC 1 days when the occasion was observed as a statutory holiday. Some observers are not amused about the open celebration of June 4, because the event is captured on the calendar of the ruling party as a commemorative day. This year’s celebration, Today’s underground checks have confirmed, would be held at the Tamale Police Park, in the northern part of the country, and it is on the theme: “The Youth and the Future.”

The celebration, Today’s authoritative sources indicates, will start with a short wreath laying ceremony at the Flagstaff House in Accra in the early hours of Friday, June 4, 2010 in memory of those who lost their lives in the heady days of the uprising and others considered as martyrs of June 4.

The former President is expected to lay one on behalf of the martyrs while a member of the cadre group, whose name the paper could not establish as at press time, is also expected to lay one on behalf of those who were consumed by the turbulent period of the uprising and for the cadres of June 4.

Former President Rawlings together with his wife, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, and other ministers of state from the cadre front will then fly in a special Air Force plane to the Tamale Police Park to address an organized rally.

At the rally, the former President will also inaugurate a special youth wing of the June 4 uprising, while an election will be held to elect officers of the youth group.

The paper’s flawless information suggests that the June 4 youth movement will serve as another platform to court many Ghanaians youth into the fold of the ruling party to complement the efforts of the NDC youth forum.

Some cadres and operatives of the National Security Council and the Bureau of National Investigations were among the first batch of contingent that went to Tamale to prepare the rally grounds.