Where Is They Honour, Jerry John Rawlings?

The admission last week that the self-appointed Junior Jesus of Ghanaian politics indeed collected a colossal US$2 million bribe from the late General Sani Abacha, usually referred to as the “Butcher of Nigeria, leaves the entire society of Ghana battered and bruised.

Here is a person considered so clean that the politics of this nation has come to revolve around him. The 1992 Constitution, the set of laws upon which the political evolution of this nation is evolving, was virtually written, based on his so-called concept of 'integrity, probity and accountability.”

Read the preamble to the Constitution: “…In a solemn declaration and affirmation of the commitment to Freedom, Justice, Probity and Accountability …DO HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITION.”

Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings has built his entire political life on the notion of a clean military officer who put down his military fatigues to become the Constitutional Head of State of this Republic.

As the military dictator and Chairman of the short-lived Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, he tied eight top officers of this country to the stakes at the Teshie Military Firing Range and executed them.

Those executed included three former Heads of State – Gen. Kutu Acheampong, who staged a coup on January 13, 1972 and chaired the National Redemption Council he established. Lt-Gen. F.W.K. Akuffo, who staged a palace coup and replaced Acheampong, was also tied to the stakes and shot.

The third former Head of State slaughtered at Teshie was Lt-Gen Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa, a leading actor in the events that led to the removal of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as Life-President of Ghana in February 1966.

The other military officers who were forced to give up the ghost at Teshie were Army Commander Major-General R.E.A Kotei, Navy boss Commander Joy Amedume, then Air Force Commander, Air-Vice Marshall George Yaw Boakye, Border Guard Commander Colonel Emmanuel Utuka, and Foreign Affairs Minister Colonel Roger Felli.

They were accused of using their influence to corrupt the system. It turned out that some of them had borrowed GH¢50,000 from the bank to undertake various projects, including farming.

Many other officers of the Armed Forces, hundreds of businessmen and women, as well as a number of politicians were incarcerated in various prisons and given long sentences with hard labour.

At that point in time, the leader of the military junta was Flt. Lt Jerry John Rawlings, who was considered so clean that he was referred to as Junior Jesus. The first major crack in Mr. Rawlings reputation started doing the rounds in 1998, when newspapers,

including The Chronicle, published information, sourced from Nigeria, that the former Chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council, who was then sitting at the Castle as Constitutional President of Ghana, had taken US$5 million bribe from then Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha, to help clean the image of the Nigerian dictator in international diplomacy.

Mr. Rawlings himself was tight-lipped. But as the media and civil society groups called for an investigation into the scandal, the then Speaker of Parliament, the late Mr. Justice Daniel F. Annan, ruled that there was no basis for any such Parliamentary investigation. The matter was put to rest.

It took an investigative journalist from Nigeria to get the former Junior Jesus to own up. Under intense questioning from the newsman, Mr. Rawlings said he indeed took the money from Abacha's agent, a security capo called Gwarzo, but the quantum was not US$5 million. It was a mere US$2 million.

The confession from Boom Junction, the official residence of the former Head of State, has re-opened the floodgates of criticism. To The Chronicle, the matter goes beyond the quantum of the 'blood' money.

For us, the matter ought to be fully investigated, and the former Head of State put on trial. Bribery is still a crime under our criminal code. That is not all. We are appealing to the President to grant pardon, post-humously, to all those executed on the orders of Rawlings in those heady days in June 1979. Of course, we are referring to the eight generals executed at Teshie.

It is our prayer too that those who were imprisoned are granted pardon and offered some form of compensation. The crime, for which all those suffered, pales into insignificance against the 'US$2 million' Flt. Lt Rawlings says he took as 'blood money' from the 'Butcher of Nigeria.'

Currently, there are ugly noises from Nigeria urging Gen. Mahammadu Buhari to recover the Abacha loot. That, of course, includes the blood money given the former Head of State of Ghana. We urge a full scale enquiry into the whole scandal. Did Flt Lt. Rawlings use some of the Abacha 'blood money' to fund the National Democratic Congress?

In all this, where is thy honour, Jerry John Rawlings?