Recent events in the country led to some anxious persons alerting President Ataa Mills to be cautious because a serial coupist is lurking about. The hullabaloo was heightened when the said serial coupist is alleged to have held covert meetings with security capos at the Jubilee House. The said serial coupist is no other person than the JJ Rawlings, founder of the NDC party. Well the issue is can JJ Rawlings be described as s a serial coupist or is he been accused wrongly. For a crime to be described as serial it must have occurred three or more times and in successions. There are serial rapists, serial killers, serial callers etc. Is there something called a ‘serial coupist’?
To start with, some few years ago there was a serial rapist who prowled the dark alleys of Legon campus around the N-Block near the Botanical Gardens. This sexual predator pounced on innocent students on their way to lectures and raped them. He succeeded in raping a couple of ladies but ran out of luck when he raped an American Exchange Student who was out jogging. The lady nailed him by giving a sketch of him to investigators. This helped investigators to link him to other unsolved rape cases on campus. Investigators used the e-fit to trace him to his hideout in Bongo in the Upper East region where he was shopped by his own friend.
Again prior to the 2000 election there was serial killing of women in Accra and its environs. A Psychopath by name Charles Ebo Quansah was found guilty for killing dozens of women and was sentenced to death. The serial killings had surface again though the monster is on death row. Five bodies of women with body parts missing surfaced in Ofankor in Accra some few days ago. The concern of many is when women are dieing; politicians are politicking with the whole issue. The NDC claims the killings had resurfaced because the NPP is now out of power and vice versa.
In view of the above examples can JJ Rawlings be described as a serial coup maker? Well Rawlings is on record for attempting two coups in Ghana. The first was the abortive coup of 1978 against Kuku Acheampong. He was arrested by the military rulers and was charged with subversion. Then there was the 19981 coup which overthrew the late Dr Hilla Limann. In his book the ‘Trial of JJ Rawlings’ the veteran journalist Kojo Yankah explained Rawlings was in detention when the 1979 coup that overthrew SMC II took place. The coup was led by Major Baokye Djan who freed Rawlings from detention and made him leader of the coup. Rawlings was therefore not part of the 1979 coup.
Prior to Boakye Djan’s coup Kojo ‘T’ had previously been arrested for attempting a coup. It was around the same period Kofi Awoonor was also detained at Ussher Fort for assisting a fugitive to escape. While in detention Awoonor wrote his poem ‘A House by the Sea’. The poem talked poignantly about the secret torture chambers at Ussher fort. Kojo T and JJ Rawlings were alleged to have been regulars at these torture chambers. Rawlings for instance had his finger nails forcefully pulled from its roots by his torturers. These victims of the torture chambers later found them useful instead of shutting them down anyway.
Political analysts believed Boakye Djan and his groups made Rawlings their leader because of his popularity. According to Kojo Yankah Rawlings became very popular during his trial for his abortive coup. Faced with imminent death sentence Rawlings displayed some bravado throughout his trial. He blabbed, yapped and yelled at his accusers. His displayed of enormous courage at the face of death helped his course and his name swept through the military barracks like a raging tsunami.
Ironically his accusers offered him a platform that propelled him to fame. When his accusers realised he was becoming contagious they permitted him to continue with his speeches still. The truth is the military rulers underrated his capabilities and mammoth talent. You don’t give someone with such a monstrous talent an opening and you don’t expect him to turns things around. Their idiocy sent them to death row instead.
In 1981 Dr Hilla Limann offered Rawlings another opening. The security agents had hints of the 19981 coup. They were waiting for orders from Limann to stop Rawlings in his track. In the mean time Limann was busy chomping bisi (cola nuts) and littering the castle grounds with cola emits. He also underrated Rawlings and kept saying ‘Jato wontumi nyefeeee’. He found himself on the wrong side of history.
There is school of thought which says JJ Rawlings was used as a front for the 1981 coup. The brains behind the plot were believed to be Kojo ‘T’ and co. Assuming this theory is true then it’s a bit bizarre. Why would he (Rawlings) take delight in carrying crosses meant for others? As things stand presently he will likely go down the history books as the slayer of the 3 High Court Judges instead of Amartey Kwei and co. Posterity will hold him liable for sending the 8 army officers of the SMCs to the gallows while Boakye Djan walks around freely. He will be blamed for the atrocities committed during the AFRC and the PNDC eras. Including the atrocities committed by numerous evil soldiers who exploited the system.
For instance posterity will blamed him for an incident that happened decades ago at the Makola market though he may not be aware of it. It was a very horrific incident which was witnessed by many market women and shoppers including me.
It was during the long vacation and I was at home bored and restless as any child would. My mum sensed how restless I was and asked one morning if I would like to follow her to the Makola market for shopping. I jumped at the idea because I knew that was the chance for me to have something to tell my friends when school resumed. Usually it was the vintage Amon who came with exciting stories and got the attention of Mercy the prettiest girl in the class. I will prove Amon wrong this time and win the heart of the petit Mercy.
At the market I carried the shopping basket while mum picked items from stall to stall and dropped them in. We got to a particular stall and I noticed a soldier in uniform standing menacingly over a provision seller. He was yelling at the seller who was busy attending to her crying little boy who was disturbed by the soldier’s roar. The next thing I saw was the soldier jumping on the poor woman and started pounding her into pulps. He punched her over and over again and one of his hefty blows caught her on the jaw sending her sprawling to the floor with a couple of her teeth falling off. The little boy screamed louder as his mum was attached and this drew the attention of many to the scene. People watched from a distance because a monster was at work.
As the woman was on the floor the soldier held her dress around her neck; pulled her up with a brute force; and the dress divided into several pieces. The shredded dress fell off her shapely body leaving her naked. Spurts of blooding oozed from her cracked lips and ran slowly down the ridge between her smooth bosoms vanishing into the curves around her waistline. The blood soaked into the braids of colourful beads lying neatly in the curvature of her waist. By this time the confused little boy walked to her mum; got in between her legs and buried his head in the appropriate place to cover her mum’s shame. He cuddled his mum’s round thighs in an attempt to console her. His curly hair got covered with blood. The only crime of the woman was to ask the beast to pay for the provisions. Apparently the soldier grabbed a handful of the scarce items and was about to walk away without paying.
After degrading her womanhood the monster took the looted items and melted into the crowd shamelessly amidst booing from onlookers. The defenceless woman silently looked into the skies with teary eyes; raised her arms and started invoking the spirits of her deities on the head of the miscreant. In times like this when the state cannot provide you justice you fall on the ancestors to provide you one. The vulnerable woman and many others like her were stripped naked by men on drugs during the AFRC era. The women were stripped by lascivious fiends who forced them into compromising positions on tables and ordered them to spread their thighs wide apart singing ‘eye kanea eye hine’. (Light on, light off). Humanity was at its lowest ebb during those horrific days. So Rawlings will you like to take the blame for all these?
Mum held my hand gently and led away from the scene. Perhaps she did not want me to commit a taboo by seeing an adult in the nude. Or may be she was protecting me from the beast. In the end I got so disappointed after the shopping because the only story I had to tell my friends was that of the violent shop lifter. It donned on me I had lost Mercy the cute girl in my class to Amon for good because she disliked violent stories.
Francis Kwaku Egu, UK
kwakuhull@yahoo.com
