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Ladies, gentlemen and others, good whatever to some of you! Things are becoming a lot complicated these days, especially as we get nearer to the lot-casting day, what with politicians and pseudo-politicians, lawyers and pocket lawyers, royals and subjects, servants of God and servants of the other guy, et all humans are saying this or that just to have their voices heard.
The hot issues include our beautiful Lot-Caster General, Charlotte Osei vs. the masses; JDM’s pre-Christmas gifts of slashing down electricity bills drastically; the demand by all God-fearing Ghanaian women that the Assin Bill Gates should be brought to order for saying that every woman who was ever promoted, even as from day nursery to kindergarten, was promoted not on merit, but because she, excuse me to say, lifted her skirt up or pulled her trousers down for some men to explore her dignity.
Then there was the issue of a certain Ford car, which went on an expedition from the Sahel to the tropics of Ghana, and found no other parking lot to park in, but the car pool of the Presidency. And then came the revelation by our one and only Togbe Xornametor I that the best Head of State Africa ever had, by his survey, helped him with $2 million to resolve some small domestic issue.
In fact, he did not indicate returning the soft-loan, praising his stars that Abacha died before the repayment scheduled date. A situation of this nature is fully explained in a chapter in the book, The Socio-Political Theory of Organised Chaos called Complicated Hypocrisy.
Where to start from is even more complicated for me, especially as I am that confused. Here is H.E. (Flt. Lt.) Jerry John Rawlings, who was once a Catholic, and still forever a Catholic, making a public confession that Gen Sani Abacha, a military ruler of Nigeria from 1993 until his sudden death-in 1998, actually gave him $2 million, and not $5 million.
When the news first broke in the 90s, he completely denied it. And now, if it took eighteen years to tell us that, indeed, he received only $2 million, then by the principle of if-more-less-divide, it will take another twenty-seven years for him to tell us it was $5 million after all. Oh, 2043, when, oh when will you come?
Now as Head of State of this Republic, did he declare the money to the state and had it paid into state coffers? If even those heads of state who are given gifts and they lodged them in the state’s name are been condemned for accepting the gifts in the first place, then what do we say of Rawlings?
I am confused, because was it not this same Rawlings who we accused of acquiring a plane as part of his fat ex-gratia, and he decided that he had the right to remain silent? I am confused, because if he has started revealing the acquisition of $2 million as starters, then what did he receive as the main menu and dessert?
I am even more confused when Rawlings is now on about how corrupted the current NDC is, when, in fact, he has lot more questions to answer about corruption of his personal self and family.
I was as much confused and amazed, as a clear case of complicated hypocrisy showed up among the Rawlingses, when H.E. Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings descended heavily on H.E. John Dramani Mahama, the President of the Republic, for receiving the Ford Expedition from the foreign contractor, Djibril Kanazoe of Burkina Faso. Stating the moral code of conduct in this matter which H.E. Mahama was alleged to have breached,
She said that anything exchanged for something was wrong, since all statesmen and people in position of power must ensure that they conduct themselves to remove suspicions of bribery and conflict of interest. This was during her interview with Francis Abban on Pulse, a Joy News current affairs programme. She added that the Mahama-led administration has failed to fight corruption.
Clearly a case of complicated hypocrisy, when she must certainly be aware of the gifts her husband took, including the $2 million from Sani Abacha, which he never made known until now that it dawned on him to start confessing.
The Ford Expedition is alleged to cost $100,000, which means Abacha’s gift to Rawlings could have purchased twenty of such vehicles. And so, now that we know, why not turn the heat on the Rawlingses for living secret lives of corruption?
Granted that if the gift of millions were to be given to Rawlings in 1993, when Abacha usurped the throne, with an annual compounding rate of interest of 10%, that money would have reached $16,280,549.90 today; if it were offered in 1998, then we will be talking $11,119,834.70 today. That means purchasing between 111 and 162 Ford Expeditions.
And Nana Konadu still believes that in the case of her husband it was nothing more than collecting a calabash full of kola, or a bowl of Hausa koko without sugar.
The earlier Nana Konadu and her husband stop playing the complicated hypocrites and stop bashing Mahama and the current NDC for acts of corruption, the better it will be for them. Because Ghanaians still want to know the truth about the $5 million gift from Sani Abacha, which many believed it was, and not $2 million that Rawlings was swearing to.
And did he add that when he became head-of-state, someone gave him a cheque of $1 million when he was broke? How did that person know he was broke, since he always allied himself with the down trodden, and who was that person by the way? He claimed he threw the cheque in a drawer, and eight years later, a comrade reminded him and he asked him to look for it. So what happened after, did they find the cheque? Obviously, it could not be cashed, since the expiration of the six months period, however, how are we sure that he did not go after the donor to write a fresh cheque and add interest?
Seriously, if this is not a case of complicated hypocrisy, then I do not know what, for this was the man who defined wealth and riches as corruption, and brought in a revolution to punish the rich, pronouncing wealth and affluence as equal to high treason and murder, and yet, probably at that same time he accepted a cheque of $1 million and allowed the donor to walk away freely?
He did not question the donor source of wealth, and his intentions of donating that handsome amount of money, which could be about $25, 547, 670 today, after 10% compounding interest over thirty-four years. This is on the assumption that he received that cheque in 1982 when he could be really broke and hungry.
I am very sure that Rawlings is not volunteering the truth about this $1 million gift as well. He could have surely cashed it, because if he did not need it, why did he not tear it up or give it back to the donor? And rather it was kept in a drawer for eight years, and that was after when he felt the need for it? By the way, that was in 1990, perhaps, and he was having problems with the need to go back to constitutional rule, something he abhorred, as Adu Boahen kept knocking on his door.
Also, is it not a hallmark of complicated hypocrisy for a head of state to say that he was so broke that he had nothing on him at all? How broke, by the way? That he could hardly get a square meal a day? Go tell this to the yor ke gari seller, for even kids in day nurseries will not believe and only hoot at you and shout “S-H-A-EMU-E—SHAME.”
Then there was this aircraft gift from this same Sani Abacha to Rawlings, which created an uproar in 1999, which compelled Rawlings to invoke the Miranda Rights on himself and maintained his right to remain silent on the matter. The $5 million was to influence Rawlings to support Nigeria’s bid on the UN Security Council, and the aircraft was to influence him on an unnamed issue in the West Africa sub-region. Anymore, please!
Yes, there was this Gulfstream issue, which many believed was bought by Rawlings as part of the state’s ex-gratia award to him. Here too, the ex-president invoked the Miranda Rights on his personal self. So the question is how clean are the Rawlingses?
From a humble beginning, when even yor ke gari was bought on credit with months in arrears, to usurping the seat of governance and acquiring a mini castle in Sogakofe, a huge mansion in Agyirigano, Accra, and some elsewhere (while he demolished houses of hard working businessmen); with lots of latest adult toys (vehicles); educating his children abroad in the most expensive institutions; traveling wide with family and enjoying family life (while denying some families their fathers), and many other shows of wealth and affluence as he rubbed shoulders with the world’s filthy rich.
So where from this sudden rise to grace, when Rawlings inherited a poor nation, and after 19 years left it even poorer? Where did he get the diamond studded walking stick from, which he gave as a gift to the late Michael Jackson? If he is not corrupted, then why did he sell state assets at give-away prices to his wife’s company, even as her December Women’s Movement (DWM) is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and does not do business for profit?
If H.E. John Dramani Mahama is being torn to shreds for receiving a car he never uses, then what about Rawlings, who actually received a gift in millions of dollars in the 90s, and yet kept it to himself to this day? Who is more corrupted? And yet, he is saying that JDM and the NDC government are very corrupted. Well, he is telling us so, but who is the father of the NDC, and who brought them up the way they should go, so that now they cannot depart from corrupted ways?
Jerry John Rawlings and his wife must come clean and honestly on the state of their corruption index and spare us this complicated hypocrisy.
