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05.04.2007 General News

Rawlings sends ‘coup signal’

05.04.2007 LISTEN
By myjoyonline

Former President Jerry John Rawlings has warned that the military and the police would soon embark on an action which even the Intelligence Network of Mr Francis Poku, the Minister for National Security, would not be able to prevent.

The Crusading Guide newspaper reports that its intelligence unit has gathered that Rawlings sent the coup signal during a marathon meeting he held with some key members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the Coco Beach Hotel, Nungua, near Accra, on Tuesday, April 3, 2007.

According to him, an indication of the action (coup d'etat or mass upheavals?) he was referring to was given by (an anonymous) soldier on Radio Gold – an Accra¬-based radio station – in the morning of that Tuesday.

Readers will recall that last Saturday too, a Deputy Minister for Defense in Rawlings' Government, Dr Tony Aidoo in his contribution to a current affairs programme “Alhaji and Alhaji” on Radio Gold indicated that the situation in the country was ripe for over ten coups d'etat.

The Crusading Guide said it was informed by a source at the said meeting – which purportedly began at 9.00am and ended at 5.15pm – that Rawlings, when addressing his colleagues, said the NDC could not wrest power from the ruling New Patriotic Party by normal means.

"You think you can get power from the NPP like that; you go get it by force,” the paper quoted Rawlings.

Rawlings was said to have intimated that the NDC people should not wait till 2008. “You have to take it by force,” he stressed.

According to the paper's source, ex-President Rawlings, an 'expert coup plotter,' described members of the NPP as not his political opponents, but his “sworn enemies.”

He said they would remain so until they (NPP) found justice for the women they allegedly killed, the alleged killers of the late Ya-Na and Issa Mobila. He was quoted to have said: “They should also find justice for Ibrahim Adam, Kwame Peprah (who was in attendance) and Abodakpi," adding that he was waiting for the NDC to get power and ask for justice.

The Crusading Guide also gathered that Rawlings took a swipe at the Security Minister, describing the latter as “cunning, that he believed he was smart.”

The coupist, the paper said, warned that “one of these days we would see who is smarter.”

He accused Lawyer Agbotse, an NDC Member of Parliament, for defending Dr. Richard Anane, former Minister for Road Transport and castigated Mr. E. T. Mensah (NDC Member of Parliament) for following President John Agyekum Kufuor to the United States to sign the Millennium Challenge Account.

Concerning his own NDC party, the paper's source said the ex-President lamented the choice of the Chairmanship of the party. He said he had believed that Dr Obed Asamoah, the former Chairman, was the problem, but he (Jerry) had realised that they (NDC) had not found a better replacement.

He accused the new NDC team of not doing well and suspected that the National Executive Members might also have collected money from National Security.

It was learned that Rawlings scolded the National Executive Committee Members (of the NDC) for asking Mr. Victor Smith (his Special Assistant) not to talk. He said he would forget about them and ask Victor to start talking.

Mr. Modestus Ahiable (NDC Volta Regional Chairman) alleged that the NPP was trying to manipulate chiefs, adding that he had a way of organizing chiefs to create “a security situation” in the Volta region, and warned that such chiefs would be neutralised.

Credit: Crusading Guide

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