Spare A Thought For Rawlings

Kwaku Sefa Manu

At last weekend’s congress of the NDC in Tamale, ex-President Rawlings called on members of his party to “put a stop to the backstabbing, lies and treachery that is going on within the party and government”.

I immediately wondered who the advice was aimed at. Since the inauguration of President Mills in January 2009, the single most prominent person in the NDC who has been calling people “bastards”, “corrupt” “opportunist” , etc, etc, etc is Mr. Rawlings himself. In any case, who was it who, in the middle of the 2008 general and presidential elections campaign was sending text messages to people demanding that they should change the then Candidate Mills because he was sick? As for the charge of treachery, what can be more than saying that your President is likely to be a one-term President?

Then there is his proxy, Dr. Spio Garbrah, who accused his opponents of sleeping for free in government residences on their campaign trail, although, in the next minute, he claimed that he would use the resources of the CTO to organize the NDC abroad. Then there are the “Team A” front-men who were accusing their opponents of corruption, vote buying, etc.

Looking at the way that the NDC campaign was conducted, all the “backstabbing” and the spread of wild allegations were coming from those who consider themselves as “Team A”. If it is true that the vote buying agenda worked, then it would not be only Mr. Asiedu Nketia and Dr. Kwabena Adjei who bought votes. How could he say that those distributing the monies were members of government or government-sponsored candidates who had refused to sell their qualities to delegates but had rather chosen to buy the delegates? Would it be fair to say therefore that anyone who obtained more than a thousand votes at the elections achieved those numbers by buying votes? If that were the case, then the list of vote-buyers is longer and goes beyond the two gentlemen. I wonder why people decide to stick wild labels on to their opponents when they face a stiff contest. What is more backbiting than this? Indeed, the NDC will survive if people within it do not go upstream to muddy the river, and then come downstream to ask: “Who has done this?” Another word for such behaviour is “hypocrisy”.

Mr. Rawlings’ speech was full of venomous accusations. If anyone was promoting factions within the NDC, it was he who was doing just that. What exactly did he mean by people being “intimidated by people who seek office because they have direct links to so-called powerful people in government or the party people”? Or even that “the executive is not in touch with the party” or even worse that “the past few months has seen the adoption of a canker that was best identified with the NPP”. In making all such accusations, he could not point to one example.

How can Mr. Rawlings be claiming that the NDC stands for social justice, when he accuses the President Mills government of being slow in rushing NPP people to court even before any evidence has been gathered in accordance with social justice? To buttress this point, he reminded President Mills: "You are aware our party is a direct descendant of June 4, 1979 and 31st December 1981”. We all know that these were periods when people were imprisoned or even shot dead without any charge being preferred against them. If this is what he wants President Mills to do, then God save Ghana.

Was it not Mr. Rawlings who came to power riding on the crest of “people’s power” some time ago in 1981 but who, as soon as he had the power, turned against “the people”? People should ask the leaders of the then local trade unions in Tema, Obuasi, and other workplaces whom Mr. Rawlings had arrested only because they were following what they thought was the “people’s power” agenda being preached by him. Rawlings sold off more than 150 state-owned companies to foreigners, resulting in the laying-off of hundreds of the “people” into the army of the unemployed. The massive unemployment situation in the country is the result of the absence of manufacturing and processing companies. Twenty-seven years after betraying the “people”, causing them to be unemployed and emasculating them into subservience, Mr. Rawlings metamorphosises once again to tell us about “people’s power” and the need for the “protection of the masses”. He should go and tell that to the Marines.

The people that Rawlings calls “bastards” today were his chosen people yesteryear. If they have now turned into ordinary “bastards”, it is a mark of the failure of Mr. Rawlings that his “angels” should have turned into devils. Where then is the guarantee that those that he now considers as the people with conscience will not be called “bastards” tomorrow?

There is a question that the latter-day Rawlings adherents should be asking themselves. Why does their Founder keep shedding off his “trusted” friends like people discard toilet roll? In the beginning was Lt. Baah Achamfuor, Major Boakye Djan, etc. He discarded them and associated with the then young people who formed the June Four Movement (JFM). By 1982, after he had used them, he discarded them s well. Then he arrested and imprisoned people such as Dr. Yao Graham of the New Democratic Movement (NDM) for holding principled positions. They were soon followed by the members of PANYMO. When Rawlings accused Mr. Ashiboe Mensah, his then Minister of Trade, of “interfering with the psychological aspects of the revolution”, he hit him on the jaw with a gun and fired the gun. Mr. Ashiboe Mensah has never recovered health-wise since. He threw the briefcase of Goosie Tandoh out of a window in a fit of anger. By 1999, he had parted ways with Captain Tsikata, his then protector. Many many others followed. And now in 2009/10, most of the people with whom he finished his term in 2000 are now “bastards” and “opportunists” and “traitors”. Not even Victor Smith, his Spokesman, lasted.

The only saint left in this country today is Mr. Rawlings. No wonder he grabbed the microphone at the Tamale congress last weekend and started shouting at people as if he was possessed.

Those who think Mr. Rawlings is a Saint are welcome to worship him. Very soon, they will also join the train of the “bastards”.