Former President, JJ Rawlings
I have been inundated with hate and insipid messages from the stubbornly impenitent coup enthusiasts for expressing my harmless opinion on the June 4 1979 vicious coup d’état.
In my humble opinion, there was irrevocable dishonesty and hypocrisy on the part of the founders of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and hence my endless fury in condemnation.
Understandably, the NDC loyalists would never agree with some of us for persistently criticising their beloved party through the lenses of past events.
But I am afraid we cannot make sense of the present happenings if we refuse to take stock of the past events.
Therefore, some of us cannot help but continuously shriek, grouch, censure and highlight the revoltingly risible tendencies of the devotees of the June 4 1979 and 31st December 1981 truculent coup d’états.
The seasoned journalist, Malik Kweku Baako, could not have put it any better when he aptly described the founders of the NDC as nothing but ‘remorseless’ opportunists’ (emphasis mine).
Kweku Baako was absolutely right when he asserted that the socio-economic meltdown during the Supreme Military Council (SMC 1&2) regimes called for drastic measures to ‘clean’ the system, but the excesses of the 1979 revolution, regrettably, debased the otherwise necessary intervention.
Baako, however, did not waffle at all, when he ventured and stressed forthrightly that he can never forgive the founder of NDC, Rawlings, and his rabble-rousers for stretching the whole concept of ‘house cleaning exercise’, and needlessly deposing the democratically elected government of the People’s National Party(PNP) led by Dr Hilla Limann on 31st December 1981.
Malik Kweku Baako was absolutely right; there is no justification for anyone to knowingly violate the inalienable human rights of innocent people.
The fact however remains that the founders of the National Democratic Congress manipulated Ghanaians. They vowed to lustrate the country of the so-called rampant sleazes, corruption and social injustices.
But what happened after allegedly purging the country of the perceived injustices through the so-called “house cleaning exercise”,--by dealing with perceived offenders arbitrarily?
It is important to note that Rawlings and his coup making geezers bamboozled onto the scene under the pretext of redeeming Ghanaians from the so-called economic mismanagement and wanton corruption, and yet couldn’t even get rid of the rampant sleazes and corruption in their NDC administrations, let alone the entire nation.
I have stressed severally that some of us witnessed the squeamishly ugly events which took place over a period of three decades (1970-1990s) and therefore cannot be misinformed by the unrepentant coup enthusiasts.
My dear reader, it is with the deepest regret that I venture to state that innocent citizens lost their inherent dignity and human rights in the days of the founders of the NDC’s hopeless coup d’états.
When the coup enthusiasts (the founders of NDC) burst onto the scene, they went haywire and barbarically tortured and murdered people with minimal offences.
I hate to admit though, but the fact remains that there is nothing wrong for a group of people to come together and identify themselves as the coup enthusiasts, or the ideologues of transparency, probity and accountability.
However, it is hypocritical and somewhat deceitful if a group of people who claim to be the exponents of such ethos turn around and commit the same crimes they inexorably preach against.
It has been documented that when the coup enthusiasts burst onto the scene, they went berserk and tempestuously tortured and murdered people with more than two vehicles.
However, as I write, the same coup enthusiasts are hypocritically in possession of not less than two vehicles per household. How deceitful?
My dear reader, you may take my word for it, the vast majority of houseowners were punished severely for having more than one toilet facility in their households.
But the last time I checked, the vast majority of the so-called revolutionaries had uncountable toilet facilities in their luxurious mansions. How pathetic?
Besides, the founders of the NDC disgustingly exhibited their communist ideals by going into war with businessmen and women in the country.
The founders of NDC, regrettably, tortured and murdered innocent businessmen and women, many of whom were bizarrely accused of legally borrowing meagre sums of money from banks to support their businesses.
Strangely, albeit veracious, the so-called revolutionaries who repugnantly collapsed innocent people's businesses now own business outlets all over the place.
Some innocent businessmen and women, so to speak, were abhorrently humiliated and their businesses were either seized or destroyed by the despotic NDC founders.
Worst of all, billions of cedis (in 50 cedi denominations) were capriciously seized from ordinary Ghanaians, albeit without a trace. How bizarre?
The NDC founders, ironically, replaced our educational system with that of a communist model, while deceitfully turning around and sending their children abroad to study in what they saw as superior educational system.
In their wolfish attempts to get rid of alleged sleazes and corruption, many Ghanaians were unjustifiably tortured or murdered mercilessly for apparent infinitesimal offences.
Some market women were regrettably stripped naked in public and whipped for allegedly hauling their products or selling at high prices. While their male counterparts were wickedly shaved with broken bottles and whipped for offences that would not even warrant a police caution in a civilized society.
The human rights violations were so rampant to the extent that many citizens seized the slightest opportunity and left the country.
What incensed some of us so much is that despite their much-touted mantra of transparency, probity and accountability, we have been witnessing so many scheming guiles, sleazes and corruption in the successive NDC administrations. Who are they trying to deceive?
Astonishingly, the successive NDC government officials have been committing the same crimes (bribery and corruption) their party founders killed many innocent people for.
It is disheartening to point out that the founders of the NDC accused and exterminated people with unfounded allegations of sleaze and corruption, including eight army officers.
Nevertheless, if we honestly juxtapose the alleged corrupt practices of the murdered army officers in the 1979 coup d’état with the sleazes and corruption which took place in the erstwhile NDC administration, we cannot help but conclude that the Generals were “shot for less”.
Dearest reader, the sleazes and corruption in the erstwhile Mahama administration, so to speak, were so widespread to an extent that, the founder of the NDC, Rawlings, once shrieked and grouched openly: “I want to remind people that we could not have possibly forgotten that Generals were executed.
The greed, corruption and injustice of today are a thousand times more than what these Generals were executed for, and if we are unable to restore a firm measure of integrity into our dealings, then the blood of many would have been shed in vain” (Rawlings 2017).
As I mentioned elsewhere, there is absolutely nothing wrong for any individual to tag himself/herself as a proponent of transparency, probity and accountability.
But it is somewhat sanctimonious when a group of people who claim to be the exponents of such ethos would then turn around and dip their hands into the national purse as if there is no tomorrow.
After all, aren’t the NDC apparatchiks claiming to be preachers of transparency, probity and accountability?
So why are they refusing to practice what they have been relentlessly preaching to us all these years?
Are they wolves in sheep’s clothing?
It would appear as an illustrative case of false prophets, who are relentlessly nagging their followers that ‘it is written in the Holy Book that thou shall not steal’. While they turn around and dip their hands into the church offerings bowl as if the judgement day will never come.
My dear reader, if the so-called revolutionaries aren’t heartless and insensitive to the plight of the impoverished Ghanaians, how come they conspired and paid dubious judgement debts to the tune of GHC800 million?
If the coup enthusiasts are morally upright, how come they created loot and shared the monies belonging to GYEEDA and SADA, which were meant to transform the lives of the needy in society?
Where are the so-called revolutionaries' honesty and integrity when they squandered funds meant to transform the lives of the penniless in society through cloudy deals such as the Brazil World Cup, the infamous bus branding, SUBA, among others?
Clearly, the coup enthusiasts much trumpeting ethos of probity, transparency and accountability is a charade; it is rather an illustrative case of preaching virtue and practising vice.
Given the circumstances, some of us will continue to squall, speak and write about the seemingly double standards by the so-called revolutionaries, which the party loyalists perceive as benign or inconsequential, but I, for one, won’t abandon my duty as a bona fide Ghanaian, far from it.
And, I will rather stick to my guns, be true to the faith, and, keep upholding and defending the good name of our beloved Ghana.
