Go to Court - Baako to Mr. & Mrs Rawlings

The Accra Daily Mail talked to Kweku Baako over the weekend. Daily Mail: How do you take jail sentence four years ago? Baako: That was justice made in Ghana at a particular period in Ghanaian history. You had a first lady then had such muscle and could pull the strings anyhow. You recall what happened to me and Harruna. What made me realise that there was something basically wrong with what the Court of Appeal did, was when we applied for bail. We knew we had been jailed for one month, the courts were going on recess and were to return to their desks in October and we were to spend one month in prison, meaning we were to come out on August 22nd. So immediately after the 2-1 verdict we put in an appeal which was a substantive issue, and then put in an application for bail. We came back one week later and we were told we couldn't have the bail and we had to go back to prison. What it meant was that our appeal was reduced to an academic exercise. For me that kind of ruling was bogus and fraudulent and those judges who passed that sentence on us should bow down their heads in shame. I know one of them subsequently had a lot of problems - Essilfie-Bondzie - and may be that should be a useful lesson for him. Education by negative experience, I will put it. Substantive case still not heard
But the point is that the substantive issue that the former first lady took to court is still hanging. She never pursued it and that for me is significant because it shows the vindictive nature of that lady. She just took advantage of technicalities, roped us into what they call contempt which wasn't and jailed us. She never even sent a rejoinder to West Africa Magazine, the original platform of the publication to say that the story wasn't true. She used the Ghana Palaver, their mouthpiece to deny it and that was all. So the case as you and I speak is technically in court, four years on. We as defendants could not pursue the case. It is within the right of the plaintiff to pursue or not to pursue. My point is that the fact that she got us jailed on contempt issues and refused or failed to pursue the substantive matter which she said was libellous of her reputation tells you that she only wanted to use the system against us. She was a vindictive lady and I have always established that position with her. She lies. The propensity to lie on the part of that lady is for me amazing. Lies I'm not bothered about what she's saying this time around. She's denying the forex account story that we did on her; that she runs a Swiss account. She threatened to go to court, now she's moved to the Media Commission. I'm least bothered. To be honest with you I'm not going to have sleepless nights over that at all, because all the time she's had the culture of lying, of denying issues and yet not pursuing them. I've had so many of such encounters with her. She's a lady who went to the US and lied about why 31st December is celebrated as a holiday. She actually made a point about it being a day when riots took place in Accra. She also lied to the effect that until her husband came to power, we had always had one woman as a Member of Parliament. I took her on, on these things and she rather would tell the world that we are irresponsible and sensational journalists. This is a woman who has consistently told lies in the public domain, and I don't think she has any credibility. So denying my stories is immaterial for me. It is for her to go to court and throw a challenge, and we will be in court to deal with her. Forex account. What is the disposition?Is it in court? Initially, there was this threat of going to court; Victor Smith [Private Secretary to Rawlings] was on air making so much noise about going to court - they weren't going to go to the Media Commission because the Commission had been handling issues in a wishy-washy manner, so their solicitors had been called in immediately to process us for court. And I said, welcome to that, why not. It's their democratic right, isn't it? But interestingly enough, two or three days ago (July 9th) we received a letter from the Media Commission inviting us to react to a complaint that had been lodged with them by Mrs. Rawlings' solicitors. Incidentally, Dr. Josiah Aryeh, ("Mr. Press Conference") the NDC General Secretary happens to be the one who signed the letter. We have thought deeply about it and I have sent a letter to the Media Commission, dated July 11th, a copy of which I will give to you. We have told the Media Commission that we are unable to come to the Commission for arbitration over this particular matter in spite of our respect for them and our longstanding co-operation. This is because what we have been doing in the last few months is to undertake an exercise meant to expose the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings did not live by the tenets of probity, accountability, integrity and transparency they used to persecute other citizens in their long reign. We have done a series of stories involving the expensive overseas education of their children, their residential facilities, a car gift from Eddie Annan to the ex-president, and then this one that involves her Swiss account. For us, these are part of a package, and our aim eventually, is to send the matter before the Human Rights Commission (CHRAJ) and the Serious Fraud Office to investigate certain aspects. I'm still gathering a lot more information on their activities over the years, so to go to the Media Commission at this stage over one particular aspect of our package, would undermine the strategy that we have adopted. Right to sue I cannot stand in their way if they want to go to the courts; that's their right. But I also have every right to go for arbitration or non-arbitration, and I have chosen not to. So this letter has been sent to the Media Commission in a very respectful manner. I find it a bit disappointing myself, because this is a Commission I have co-operated with in a very serious way, but I am unable to allow the strategy of the newspaper to be derailed by this kind of petition, particularly where it is coming from, because, like I said, she has had a tendency to deny stories when they are true. When they had power they could get away with it, but this time I'm not going to allow that to happen. I don't know what the reaction of the Media Commission will be, but I insist on the authenticity, the veracity of all the stories we have done on the Rawlingses. I Cross checking allegations It is significant that they have not publicly themselves reacted to any of them; with this one they used Victor Smith to react. We even gave them the opportunity to react. Based on the ethical principles of our profession we went to them; I sent a reporter to their house twice within forty-eight hours. He left notes, copies of which we kept because I told the reporter 'you have to be very sure of yourself. So whatever notes you leave make two copies and keep one for yourself'. We indicated to them that we were there to check on an account that she was running abroad. If she had given us the opportunity, she would have known what we were going to do, but the arrogance that they had when they were in power appears not to have deserted them, so they ignored the reporter. He came back to the office and rang Victor Smith. When Mr. Smith recognised his voice he put off his phone. I told him to go back the following day and insist that we needed to have their reaction to this particular story, especially the forex account one. What did they do? They ignored the reporter again. Then we do the story and you come on air making noise and you want to take me to Media Commission where we are going to discuss ethics of the profession. It's something I won't subject myself to. In any case, this is not the first time. The ex-president himself had indicated that because according to him we publish rubbish, he would never talk to the paper. In spite of that I insisted that the principle of ethical balance, of cross checking was something I wouldn't compromise on. So I kept on sending my reporters there. When we were doing the story on the flats and education I sent somebody there. Victor Smith told him, 'I'm not prepared to talk to you. Go and ask Rawlings himself'. Rawlings was out of town then. In any case, Rawlings had made it clear that he wouldn't talk to us and Victor Smith is supposed to be the PR man. So we went ahead and did the story and they haven't done any serious denial. Media and complicity What they've been using is calling some senior journalists and other media practitioners and telling them that it's not true, and some of them naively also go round whispering that it's not true. Nobody is prepared to come forward and challenge it. We produced pictures of the flat, we produced pictures of the schools, we produced documentary proof of the admission and the fees - we produced all these things. I scanned them and put them in the newspaper. Why are they not coming forward? They ruled Ghana for 20 years, they set certain standards, used some yardsticks to probe other people. Now, we know the level of salaries they had, the income, the kind of businesses they did, so all I'm interested in is to allow constitutionally sanctioned bodies like the CHRAJ and the SFO to check whether indeed, based on the salaries they had, they could afford the kind of lifestyle they are leading. And if they say it's from friends, they have never been able to tell us which friends. Konadu has gone public to say that none of those friends has any business interest in Ghana. My investigations show that that could not be true because there is a particular lady who is labelled as the caretaker of the children who was secretary to Tamman, and Tamman has business interests in Ghana - it's to do with Coco Palm and La Palm Beach. The lady was here recently in Ghana when they had their so-called marriage anniversary bash at the M Plaza. Somehow, she is part and parcel of their financial agenda. Of course they will deny that one too as usual. But the point is that we are moving very close to the dubious deals of the Rawlingses. Some are very explosive and I am not prepared at all to be entrapped in a place where they will have prior knowledge or information of documentation that I am holding. I think their strategy of going to Media Commission is to first find out exactly how much we know and where we may possibly have got our information from, because at the Media Commission one will be compelled to bring some of these into the open. I am not prepared to do that - nobody is going to outpace me on this matter. So yes, she's gone to the Media Commission, but I believe at the end of the day, that she must rather go to the courts. We've met in court once, she won a useless victory; she should now go to court and win a substantive one. She's very welcome. Fears that you could be harmed In answering this question, I will exercise some caution, because as you know, there is this case in court involving Victor Smith for alleged plot to harm journalists, and this came from within their own camp. After a lot of denials it became clear that apparently he had authored that particular note. That's why I am going to be cautious so I don't prejudice the outcome of that case, especially when I am a witness and have been to court twice. But generally, speaking, yes, I am not for one moment unaware of that possibility because we have lived through that system before. As a member of the AFC, we were threatened; we had anonymous calls and letters threatening us that if we went on that demonstration something would happen. We even went to the police and reported to them; they invited some of the leading members of the NDC whose names had come up, and they denied it. Come the 'D' day, what happened? Gunshots! People were fired at and four Ghanaians lost their lives. So that is the experience that I have. One of the judges who was murdered had a prior threat and told the Chief Justice then, the late Apaloo, may he rest in peace, who also said - 'Don't worry, this is no threat.' Within weeks, that judge was dead and gone. So if we are looking at the track record of the Rawlings phenomenon - that is those who have been with him in PNDC, NDC - it is not beyond them to undertake such exercises. And that is why, sure, I think about it, I watch my movements, I watch myself. But I have come to a certain conclusion: I will not allow that to immobilise me. I will not allow that to become my priority, because the very moment it becomes so, you won't work again. You will not be able to do this kind of work. Throughout the world, journalists are first targets even in non-war situations, every year there is an annual report of journalists who have fallen casualty. Some of us have gone to prison, some of us were tortured, some went into exile, some run away, lost their jobs, families were distressed... so many people have suffered. So if one continues to suffer a little bit in order to sustain and preserve democracy, I think it's a useful price to pay, and I'm prepared to do that. I am not going to get myself immobilised by the fear of a possible attack on my personal security. I won't let it happen. You are CPP but you're also great defender of the current system If we don't defend the multiparty democratic dispensation, if we don't sustain it, I can tell you, all of us - the talents we have, the vocations, the traditions - would not be able to crystallise. So for me, the larger picture is what I go for first and foremost, and that is the overall democratic arrangement. That is to be defended; after all, we fought for it. Those who think Jerry Rawlings one early morning after a midnight dream gave Ghana democracy are jokers; they don't understand. Lives were lost, properties were destroyed, and homes were distressed. We fought for this particular thing despite all its limitations and deformities. It's not a perfect system, but we need to sustain and preserve in order to provide us with a conducive environment to grow ourselves, grow the society and grow the economy. There is no compromise on that. I didn't start doing this today; I did it in the Third Republic. Despite my radical posturing, despite the fact that I had reservations ideologically about some of the directions that the Limann regime, which was itself a pro-CPP regime, had taken (and as you know I am Nkrumaist to the core), I still said no regardless of all the limitations of the Limann regime. Me and my friends who were then organising the Movement on National Affairs, popularly known as MONAS, the immediate rival group to the June 4 Movement of Jerry Rawlings insisted that the constitutional apparatus should be preserved and maintained and sustained at all costs. We insisted and went out of our way, defended it, campaigned for it. Detention At the end of the day, that was why we paid the price. I was detained two years after the 31st December coup d'etat for resisting the coup from the word go. Actually they made efforts to get us to come and join the system and I said no, I could not do that because it was against the principles that Jerry Rawlings and his friends in AFRC told us. Those of us who went shouting 'let the blood flow' in support of AFRC [Armed Forces Revolutionary Council] were told on so many occasions that June 4 had occurred because of military misrule and mismanagement of the military interventions. So that somebody like Afrifa who had even left power for 13 years and had won an election and was going to parliament was included and I didn't see anything wrong with it, because I said that Afrifa had committed high treason 24th February 1966. If after all this, 27 into a government's mandate, the leader of that armed revolt takes over power, where is the principle? There is no principle, and one was ready to sacrifice his life for that. So what we are doing today is just the continuation of what we did in 1979 to 1981. Let me be blunt Now let me very blunt too here (there are CPP people who don't like me to say these things): this government is not the same as the NDC. The NDC came to power after 11 years of PNDC military rule; in actual fact they came out of the PNDC and they were proud to tell us of the continuity principle. And they came with the same arrogant posturing that the PNDC had; they were prepared to defend the PNDC track record to the hilt. The NPP This is a government that has taken over after the PNDC-NDC 19-year rule. The economy was in a mess, our politics was very polarised, culture and morality had gone to the dogs; Ghana had actually collapsed. It was on a life support system, virtually. So if this government has taken over, it makes sense for anybody who is patriotic to see the need to consolidate the system as well as the government, because the government has a mandate. It won an election and so it has a four-year mandate. That doesn't mean that you can't criticise it; that doesn't mean that even you think you should organise a demonstration, you cannot, because the constitution itself allows demonstrations as a civic democratic right. People say the media is not criticising and I say it is fallacy because the media is a pluralistic media - there are so many newspapers, radio stations, television stations and haven't the NDC people been criticising through these media? Why do they expect that Kweku Baako will be the one to lead their campaign for them especially when their campaign is frivolous and has no substance? Where I have felt by my conscience and by my professional dictates that something is going on that is not proper, I have actually said so. And there were times that I was even wrong. For instance, the Selormey arrest at the airport. By law they could do it, but I still thought that it was not the best, because the man people thought had run away had re-entered our jurisdiction - so just tell him to go home and report the next day. I was talking of the approach. Osei Tutu Prempeh was picked up at church. In law, they were right, but I do think the sensibilities of people who go to church will be assaulted, so they shouldn't have done it that way. On that massive operation for Odinga, I said that was an act of ineptitude, not because they were wrong, not because the security services if they had seen some danger could not deal with the issue, but I thought that there was an overkill. You don't take that big number to go looking for one single person, who in my view is now a spent force. But of course, the intelligence agencies have every right to think that this is a potential threat; after all, the man was part and parcel of the syndrome or the dynamics if you like, that led to the fall of the Third Republic. An intelligence person always looks at history and decides to deal with the issue from this angle. There were instances where my paper had problems with Elizabeth Ohene in the early days of this government. We also had problems with Edumadze in the Central Region. Koi Larbi has sent me to court twice. In fact the first paper to be sent to court by anybody in this government was The Crusading Guide and by a Member of Parliament belonging to the ruling party. So it is actually a fallacy to say that Kweku Baako and The Crusading Guide have not been critical when it is demanded. But I have not gone on a frivolous campaign; I have not gone on a campaign that when "Mr. Press Conference" (as The Accra Daily Mail will call him) talks, I start running. I won't do that, because I think the NDC apart from being frivolous are also being mischievous in some instances, and I'm not prepared to be drawn into that. We've been in this country for a very long time; some of us started doing politics as far back as 1972, when some of new press conference specialists were no where to be seen. And it is not now that I'm going to get educated by any of them. I have the experience; as far as Ghanaian politics is concerned, I have my hand on the handle. I mean business. So I will do what my conscience tells me to do. Nobody is going to be able to sidetrack me as far as my commitment to preserving democracy is concerned and the critical support that I give to the NPP government. I have said so; I'm not ashamed. I am an Nkrumaist who is giving critical support to the NPP government. And critical support means unity of opposites; it means unity and struggle. What it means is that where I think they need support, I give them support; where I think they need criticism, I give them criticism. But the truth is that I'm prepared to give them much more support than criticism because of the miserable legacy they inherited. The institutions of state have been so completely bastardised that the system is not functioning and you expect a government that has taken over after 20 years of one particular trend to suddenly provide solutions? You talk of non-fulfilment of electoral promises! My goodness! Do they know the promises Rawlings gave us? Do they want a checklist? In actual fact I am preparing a checklist of all the promises Rawlings made to this country from 1981 to date, and see whether he fulfilled even 10 per cent of those promises. I am not ashamed defending the NPP government; indeed, I believe they need a second term. That's my personal view. The people in my party may disagree, but as far as I am concerned, the CPP was damn lucky the NPP won the election. And some of us had agreed strategically to back the NPP in order to dislodge the NDC, because the NDC had fed or overfed on the CPP, and as long as the NDC was in power, it was difficult to revive and reactivate the CPP. So we went in that process not for nothing. I am grateful that the NPP is in government and it is now that the NDC is going to suffer its own internal problems, which will provide a basis for CPP to go back and fish out of the belly of the NDC its membership and people who went astray. I would back this president if he decides to go for a second term. I have no shame. What about the media in this new dispensation? I hesitate most times to criticise the media because I am a media man myself and its like you have a holier than thou attitude, so I always have a little problem there, but it's also sometimes important to be candid and make things clear. I monitor a lot of the radio and television stations, in fact I record many of the programmes and play back to listen and I have a little problem with some of the things happening on the airwaves. One thing is clear to me, as for the people who phone in and display so much ignorance and sometimes, emotional outbursts that could lead to problems you can forgive them. But when you have a situation where hosts and panellists themselves are so inadequate, so ignorant so that they are unable to even explain issues with the callers, or put things in the right perspective, then we're in trouble. And that is why I think it is a phenomenon that should be looked at critically because it can lead to trouble. All sorts of things are said on radio; some people think it is not a question of intellectual discourse; their view is that it is a propaganda battle. The radio station's airwaves are reduced to a battlefield for propaganda. On that basis regardless of what is being discussed, it means radio is not being used as an educational tool, it's not used as a developmental tool, it's become a tool for propaganda and counter propaganda. I blame most the panellists and the hosts as well as the owners of the stations. The print media have improved over the years; it's now left for the radio stations to catch up. The time has come for quality to take over from quantity and mediocrity. I don't think there should be room for mediocrity at this early dawn of the 21st century. I believe if they do not change, sooner or later they will lose. Ghana's current security disposition Security itself lies with the commitment of Ghanaians to sustain. When I look out there, I think the majority of Ghanaians are committed to keeping this democracy. I can swear on my last pesewa that should someone attempt to destabilise this system, Ghana will become ungovernable. That should be a disincentive to anyone who may be entertaining any such ideas. I am also convinced that those in charge of national security are up to it. The way the government has gone even with its geo politics trying to build bridges with Togo, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria is all part and parcel of security that people do not know. Strengthening and maintaining our relationship is part of security. Internally, the equipping of the security services has helped with morale. I am confident, without being absolute that the security situation is being taken care of. I am confident. Anybody who attempts a destabilising exercise will fail. Even if it succeeds it will be short-lived. Final words People have asked, Why am I pursuing the Rawlingses? People say they are passé, they are history. Deal with the current issues. I say if you don't look at the past, you cannot understand the present and you would not be able to move into the future properly. But that apart, people who say so, any time Mr. Rawlings celebrates June 4 and December 31st they don't talk, they don't ask why Mr. Rawlings is celebrating a past event or talking of the past but when Kweku Baako is discussing those things based on the principles that Rawlings espoused, they say hei, Kweku Baako is history. In any case there is a plural media. Some of us may specialise in different angles and directions, so I have no problem. Those who think they don't want to read about the Rawlingses in the Crusading Guide have the freedom to patronise other media publishing the kinds of stories they like. Pursuing the Rawlingses is a mission that is not negotiable. I will continue doing so until the last breath comes out of me. It will never stop my brother...this I will do until justice has been achieved.