‘Pay Me Like Rawlings’ -Adabuga

Ex-Cpl Mathew Adabuga, a one-time buddy of ex-Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, has written to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Hon. Joe Ghartey, seeking another look at his situation which he attributes to a “Rawlings deception”.

The former Black Beret, as Ghana Army Recce soldiers are fondly called, appeared pained about what he claimed were his unsettled entitlements from the Ghana Armed Forces, even after his appearance at the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) to demand these.

In a correspondence fired from his Oslo, Norway base where he has been living for some years now, he demanded that what was due his coup colleague, Mr. Jerry John Rawlings, and other soldiers when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration took over from their predecessors (NDC) in 2001, should be extended to him.

The 7/11/06 correspondence comes a few weeks after beneficiaries of the defunct NRC recommendations started receiving their reparations, following the release of a bulk sum from government. He wrote, “When Flt Lt Rawlings was handing over power in 2001 to the NPP government, he and most of my colleagues who became officers and WOIs, were all retired with their full benefits and entitlements. It is based on this that I am appealing for consideration.”

Mathew Adabuga, who made a spectacular appearance before the NRC, especially when he was cross-examined by a Rawlings lawyer, left no doubt about his resilience even under the heat of the legal procedure. He recalled that he had told his compatriots during his NRC appearance how he had been deceived by Mr. Jerry John Rawlings into joining him to overthrow the government of the late Dr. Hilla Limann. “I told the Ghanaian people about how the former President Jerry John Rawlings deceived me to join him to overthrow the constitutionally-elected government of Dr. Hilla Limann, also a former President of Ghana.”

Narrating his association with Mr. Rawlings, Mr. Adabuga stated that after working with the PNDC government for a while, he realized that he had been deceived into joining a coup. In an apparent bid to assuage the pain of Ghanaians, he was arrested and detained in the Ussher Fort Prison for almost a year without trial.

“I only gained my freedom on the 19th June when my friends who came from Togo across the border, tried and broke the jail,” he stated. The second attempt at overthrowing Rawlings’ unconstitutional regime having failed, he said he made his way to the Ivory Coast where he remained in the company of other Ghanaian political refugees.

He explained in his correspondence that his appearance at the NRC was to tell Ghanaians that Rawlings, his former coup colleague, was “a liar, and a human rights violator”. Adabuga further explained that even though he was instrumental in bringing Rawlings to power, he sought forgiveness for the action, expecting that Ghanaians would not allow a recurrence of what happened in those dark days of the country’s history.

Recalling his travails, Adabuga stated that he had enlisted into the Ghana Armed Forces in January 1974 and remained in the institution until 19th June 1983 when he was forced into exile by the Rawlings government, having been imprisoned for almost a year without trial. The “Navrongo boy”, an old boy of the Junior Leaders Company of the Ghana Army, was one of those Mr. Rawlings had identified and used for the putsch which brought him into the political limelight.

Many who had been involved in the touted revolution are now unanimous that in their youthful ages, they were fooled into joining what turned out to be an adventure which they later realized was a ruse. Like other “coup-mates” of the retired Air Force pilot, Mathew, along the line, felt used and dumped- a realization which prompted him to attempt an overthrow of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government. During one of his visits to the country, some elements in the former president’s household claimed he had been brought in by the incumbent political administration to assassinate Mr. Rawlings.