Know your history: Why the NDC founders sanguineous coup d’états remain the greatest crimes against Ghanaians(II)

There is no gainsaying the fact that Rawlings and his rabble rousers unjustifiably supplanted power at the time when Ghana’s economy was blossoming steadily in 1981.

Indeed, Dr Hilla Limann and his PNP government were hitting the ground running, and therefore there was no need for anyone to disturb the ambiance.

Rawlings and his friends formed a government which they called the Provisional national Defence Council (PNDC) and appointed Rawlings as the chairman.

In their attempt to get rid of the alleged sleazes and corruption, many Ghanaians were unjustifiably murdered or tortured mercilessly for apparent infinitesimal offences.

Some market women were regrettably stripped naked in the public and whipped for hording their products or selling on 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.

As if that were not enough, three eminent High Court Judges and a prominent Army Officer were barbarically murdered by some mindless stooges of PNDC on 30th June 1982 for carrying out their constitutionally mandated duties.

“June 30th 1982 continues to remain a dark spot in the nation’s political history and a nightmare for all judges in the country, after the three High Court Judges namely, Mr. Justice Fred Poku Sarkodie, Mrs. Justice Cecilia Koranteng- Addow and Mr. Justice Kwadwo Agyei Agyapong as well as a retired army officer, Major Sam Acquah, were callously murdered under strange circumstances at the Bundase Military Range in the Accra Plains, after being abducted on the night by some unidentified assailants (rawafrica.com).”

The story is told that rigorous investigations revealed that all the three Judges were sitting on review cases brought by citizens disgusted over the treatment meted out to them by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, which the military junta formed after June 4, led by Flt. Lt. Rawlings.

It was, however, reported that the Judges ordered the release of persons who had been unlawfully sentenced to long terms of imprisonment during the despotic rule of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).

Apparently, the Army Officer, Major Sam Acquah, was the head of administration who signed dismissal letters for some GIHOC workers, including one of the murder suspects, Joachim Amartey Kwei, whose services were terminated for invading and destroying property at the Parliament House.

Unfortunately, the PNDC fatuous apologists savagely murdered the three eminent High Court Judges and the Army Officer because their judgement did not go in their favour.

The Special Investigation Board (SIB) thus concluded that the abduction and murder was a diabolical plot orchestrated by, and with the connivance of the members of the Provisional National Defence Council, who later metamorphosed and formed the National Democratic Congress(NDC) in 1992.

The ace journalist, Malik Kweku Baako once recounted morosely: “Under his [Rawlings’] watch, if you don’t know let me tell you today, over 240 Ghanaians disappeared into thin air. One of them is B.B. Bismark. As we sit here, the family doesn’t know where the man disappeared to, and he wasn’t the only person – 247 Ghanaians got lost, they have families,” Mr Baako said on Kokrokoo on Accra-based Peace FM on Wednesday, 17 October 2018.

Although the PNDC administration back then paraded some seasoned politicians, the vast majority of the military personnel who headed important Ministries were novices in the political scene.

Unsurprisingly, Rawlings’s administration adopted a seemingly disastrous Economic Recovery Programme (ERP), which was introduced under the auspices of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Regrettably, the vast majority of tangible national assets, including the state owned enterprises were allegedly sold to friends and families for pittance.

The unfavourable Economic Recovery Programme culminated in a catalogue of hardships. And, on top of the harsh programmes and policies which threatened the economic fundamentals, the population had to clutch itself for food shortages, a situation which the world press somehow ignored in favour of the concurrent Ethiopian famine that resulted in millions of deaths.

As food shortages escalated in Ghana, some traders started creating artificial shortages of goods by hoarding them so as to charge exorbitant prices at a later time.

Indeed, their desperate attempts to initiate the Programme of Action to Mitigate the Social Costs of Adjustment (PAMSCAD) did nothing to improve the unfortunate situation as untold hardships permeated many households.

Starvation, so to speak, visited the vast majority of Ghanaians, and hence developing revoltingly ugly collar bones which the humorous Ghanaians renamed as “Rawlings Chain”. That was indeed the pernicious extent of the hunger.

After imposing himself and despotically ruling the country for over 11 years, J. J. Rawlings retired from the military, formed the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and bizarrely metamorphosed into civilian president in 1992.

It is, however, worth stressing that Ex-President Rawlings 96 months democratic rule came to an end in January 2001.

Despite being in power for nineteen years, President J. J. Rawlings’s could not initiate any meaningful policies and programmes to improve on the socio-economic standards of living, but only managed to destabilise Ghana’s macroeconomic indicators.

President Kufuor had a tough time running the country when he took over the presidency on 7^th January 2001, as there was not much funds left in the national purse to plan anything meaningful.

Ghana was then declared as Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC). The newly elected President Kufuor had a tough decision to make, by either embracing or rejecting the HIPC status.

Nevertheless, the forward thinking President Kufuor chose to ingest an insipid pill with a view to getting over the malaise. He thus pragmatically embraced the HIPC status in 2001.

On reflection, though, the benefits of the HIPC were unprecedented during former President Kufuor’s administration, from (2001-2008).

In effect, macroeconomic indicators begun to stabilize and Ghana’s debt stock was significantly reduced by about $4 billion within that period (BOG).

Besides, as a result of the HIPC initiative and prudent borrowing, Ghana’s external debt stock actually declined from $6.1 billion in 2000 to$3.8 billion by 2008 (BOG). It was an unprecedented achievement, so to speak.

The average GDP growth of the NDC from 1993-2000 was 3.8% while that of the NPP from 2001-2008 was5.2% with economic growth reaching 6.3% in 2007 and 9.1 in 2009 (GSS/BOG).

President Kufuor worked strenuously for eight solid years, laid a favourable economic foundation and retired honourably.

He then passed on the baton to the late President Mills on 7^th January 2009, following his2008 election victory.

Regrettably, things started to fall apart. It went from bad to worse following President Mills sudden and mysterious death. The conspiratorial plotters then had a field day leading to the 2012 general elections.

President Mahama and his NDC apparatchiks went berserk in their desperation to cling on to power. Thus they broke all conventions. Many government departments spent over and above their allocated budgets.

President Mahama, so to speak, performed abysmally. He did not do enough to improve on the socio-economic standards of living.

Former President Kufuor quadrupled Ghana’s GDP to a staggering GH28 billion in 2008. And the late Mills inherited oil in commercial quantities and managed to increase the GDP to GH47 billion in 2011.

Suffice it to stress that President Mahama disappointingly reversed the GDP to an incredible GH37 billion as of December 2016.

K. Badu, UK.
k.badu2011@gmail.com

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