“Don’t forget, eight generals, three former heads of state .....

“ , painfully executed”- Rawlings finally admits!

Chairman Rawlings can, in the same breath, claim to be beyond reproach, as far as corruption is concerned, and yet assert that “when it comes to accusing me, don’t forget, eight generals, three former heads of state, painfully executed” (See “I’ve never been corrupt my whole life-Rawlings- Ghanaweb 27th March 2014). Like many Ghanaians, I have given up on riposting to Rawlings’ many senseless bombasts. Having come to appreciate Asiedu Nketia’s description of the man as the putative ‘barking dog’, I guess I have, in the last year or two, learnt to ignore, even live with the din of his ill-mannered extemporisations, much in the same way the constant barking and howling of a dog, with time, slowly but surely fades into the background.

However, every now and then, it becomes very difficult for me to stop myself from reacting to some of the things that man says. Indeed, it appears it is high time that this tendency of the Chairman is pathologized! For how can any right-minded person remove a democratically elected government, order the execution and brutalisation of countless people and then turn round to pontificate about them? I cannot help but conclude that the man is, indeed, off his rocker!

For your information, Mr. Rawlings, the term “corruption” comes from the Latin word corruptio which means “moral decay, wicked behaviour, putridity or rottenness” (Milovanovic, 2001). Indeed corruption has been classified into two aspects-grand and petty. Grand corruption refers to the corruption of heads of state, ministers, and top officials whiles petty corruption, also called “low” and “street” corruption, indicates the kinds of corruption that people experience in their encounters with public officials. That the perpetration of “wicked behaviour” was the raison d’être for Rawlings’ two coup d’états is indubitable! The man himself admits that “eight generals, three former heads of state” had to be murdered. The most insulting, duncical and patently criminal assertion he makes concerning the many killings he authorised and supervised was that

“We had no choice. We thought let two go. Acheampong and a certain Utuka, very corrupt Generals. They were sacrificed. It was not enough. Ladies and gentlemen, 10 days later, we had to sacrifice another 6 and some of the Commanders were innocent good people but it had to be done because the rage in the country was too high, too much”.

What utter madness! Notice his choice of words and the trivialness with which the man describes the killing of human beings: “We thought let two go” as if he was referring to letting two primary school kids go off and play in the sunshine! So Mr Rawlings you had no choice but to order the murdering of people who had not been found guilty by any court of law? You had no choice but to sacrifice another six innocent people because the rage in the country was too high? Oh God help me! How about using your new persona as the unimpeachable and saintly junior Jesus to quell this mass rage that you so often allude to like Mandela did when he came out of prison? Or was that not an option for you, Mr. Rawlings?

Ok , shall we follow your keenness in offering blood as a sacrifice to the raging masses by sacrificing the director of the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital due to the recent disappearance of babies; or perhaps Woyome, ought to be sacrificed because he caused financial loss to the state. How about Justice Atuguba? Should the NPP sacrifice him to appease the nearly 48% of Ghanaians who voted in their favour? Or maybe, just maybe, Tsatsu Tsikata should have been seen off into the proverbial sunset when he was found guilty of causing financial loss to the state of Ghana by a court of law-all in an attempt to appease, the blood-sucking people of Ghana! And talking about judges, can it be assumed, also, that the three judges you murdered in the 1980s, had to be, as they were, sacrificed to appease the blood-thirsty and raging masses in Ghana? What palpable neurosis!

Alluding to the definition of corruption and its classification above, Rawlings is the personification of corruption in as much as he usurped state power, ordered, supervised and subsequently tries to justify the killings and mutilation of countless Ghanaians. Indeed, as Sydney Casely-Hayford rather mildly asserted in his recent interview, Rawlings’ two coups were a complete waste of time in terms of economic theory and Ghana’s strategic direction (See. 1979, 81 coups useless, stupid cause of economic woes' Ghanaweb 27th March, 2014). Whiles agreeing with Mr. Casely-Hayford general line of thought and the fact that these two coups were distractions to Ghana’s political economy, allow me to also stress that the impact of these coups transcends the economic. In fact, Rawlings twin coups are by far the most corrupt acts that Ghana has ever witnessed in its history! The 1979 opener is only surpassed in terms of brutality and criminality by its 1981 sequel! If the 1979 coup can be justified on the basis that it removed a military dictator and ushered in democracy, what reasons can be given for the 1981 spin-off that removed Hilla Limman? Under what circumstances can a democratically elected government be forcibly removed from office by vigilante groups of famished junior officers? On what basis does a man with such limited hinterland and moral ineptitude as Rawlings label John Kufour and Nana Akuffo Addo (two persons who have no previous criminal records), or any other person for that matter, as corrupt when he openly admits killing innocent people?

Dear reader, if this is man is not delirious then I don’t know what delirium is!

Bernie D’Angelo Asher

(B.Ed, PostGradDip, MA, MSc. Email: basher@guildford.ac.uk)