Tuesday,
May 15, 2012
Former President Rawlings is in
the news again; and, as is characteristic of him, he is in for the wrong
reason.
Speaking
at the 30th Anniversary ceremony of the 31st December Women’s Movement, he was angry
at what he called “unprecedented monetization of the political space,” being
perpetrated by members of his own party in government (MyJoyOnline, May 15,
2012). He was reported as mincing no words in describing those government
functionaries as “traitors who have betrayed the ideals of the National Democratic
Congress.”
To
him, the government has “enviably lost the sense of political morality and demeaned
itself in a crass manner.” He said the NDC is now faced with fighting
two enemies—traitors and the perceived enemies. Thus, “We cannot fight these two enemies… one must go.”
In
political terms, such strong, pejorative words (“traitors” and “enemies”) connote
a lot of dread. I am not surprised they are coming from Rawlings because that’s
the true reflection of his psyche. Need I say more?
These
are the utterances of someone who has joined hands with his overly ambitious wife
and all other perpetually malcontented elements in his household and political
circle to portray extreme frustration at not being allowed to do things as they
wish.
It
must be obvious to all political observers that the Rawlings who has turned
himself into Ghana’s bugbear certainly hasn’t learnt any useful lesson from those
men of conscience and world figures that he rushes to associate with. Had he
done so, he would have learnt how to function productively in a changed
political atmosphere instead of what he gives us to see about him every passing
day.
At
this point, he doesn’t even deserve anybody’s sympathy because he is worse than
a dog that is determined to get lost and, therefore, refuses to hear its master’s
whistle. Only a bitter experience will force him to redirect his energy to
better purposes.
In
his morbid desire to construct those refusing to be manipulated by him as “enemies”
and “traitors,” he has forgotten what he himself is to Ghanaians and the
civilized world.
I am
now more than convinced that the orchestrated moves by Rawlings and his wife
know no bounds and that they will continue to poison the atmosphere with their
ill-considered political waywardness. But the end will be disastrous for them,
if they care to know. They may think that they are on top of affairs as far as
their devilish plans are concerned, but most of those who fall heavily on their
own swords often go this way.
Rawlings
has no justification to complain because what he calls “monetization of the
political space” is nothing new. It happened under his own rule in a more
unsettling manner than he may be seeing and complaining about today. Aren’t the
records clear enough on the sordid things that happened under him? Otherwise,
why did the Kufuor government prosecute all those functionaries of his
government (including his own wife), jailing some and confirming to the whole
world the rot that he (Rawlings) presided over?
I
will continue to blame Kufuor for interfering in the affairs of the judiciary
and stopping the prosecution of Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings and those
government functionaries just before leaving office. Had Nana Konadu been sent
into the cooler for her part in the corruption that the Divestiture
Implementation Committee perpetrated, Rawlings would have learnt the lesson
that has eluded him all this while.
Then
again, had Ghanaians been more insistent on taking drastic action against him,
he would have been consigned to the appropriate quarters reserved for social pests
like him.
We
must be bold at this stage to make it clear that Rawlings and his wife are like
rotten teeth in our mouths that will not rest until extracted. Ghanaians must
not continue to allow their waywardness to torment them anymore. I have
spoken!!
By continuing to write on the
Rawlingses, I don’t want to be seen as wasting my time or choosing them for
condemnation just because I don’t want them to enjoy their freedom of speech or
assert their influence in the NDC. I care little about those issues but will
say aboveboard here that I continue writing on them because of deeper-level
issues verging on the implications of their abrasive politics to our democracy.
They may not have the backing of
the military to overthrow the government and, thereby, derail our democracy;
but what they’ve been doing for some time now has the potential to provoke
something inimical.
Despite Rawlings’ immense role in
the establishment of this 4th Republic, there is every reason to be
concerned at how he and his wife are misconducting themselves.
I have already written on the
nuisance that these Rawlingses have constituted themselves into and will not
belabour it here. But suffice it for me to say that the Rawlingses may in one
way or the other do what will negatively affect our democracy if left on their
own to pursue the sinister agenda that they are implementing to undermine the
NDC and its government. We must continue to monitor their activities to be
ahead of them on this score. That’s why I’ll continue to write on them.
As they continue to irritate
Ghanaians with their insatiable quest for power and needless rabble rousing,
they create conditions for their lackeys to undermine the government. My checks
have revealed that nowhere in the world can one find such a direct or subtle
attempt by a former Head of State and his wife to seek to subvert the
government.
But here in Ghana, that is what Rawlings
and his wife are doing and pestering the society with their tantrums and
irrepressible belligerence, virtually rendering themselves an anathema while
using their “populist nonsense” to create tension in the system —and still go
about scot free.
Behaving as if by accepting them
as the country’s leaders for so long (almost two decades in power) Ghanaians
made a terrible mistake by sending themselves to their slaughter house, they
seem to consider themselves as the only people entitled to the mantle of office
and won’t give others the peace of mind to play their part in the national
resuscitation effort.
And they lock horns with anybody
who sees things differently. By arrogating to themselves the right to call the
shots, they have constantly set themselves on a collision course with almost
everybody who matters in national and local politics. They are at the throats
of their political opponents and those in their own party with different
strategies for tackling national development than the yardstick fashioned by
them.
They are at loggerheads with all
manner of people—be they soldiers (especially those with whom Rawlings launched
his so-called revolution), civilian technocrats and politicians who teamed up
with him in ruling the country under the AFRC/PNDC or the NDC, or the
intellectuals who helped legitimize his military governments. The list of such
alienated people will be too long to compile.
What manner of man is Rawlings?
And why will his wife also seek to rule Ghana and become so implacably offended
for losing the gamble? And they do things in tandem to undermine the
government!
I hate to know that the
tax-payers’ money is what sustains them. What is their contribution to the
development of the country at this stage to warrant their being supported by any
Ghanaian workers’ sweat, toil, and blood?
Forget about the constitutional
provision that a former Head of State be given all that protocol assistance.
There is something seriously wrong in our setting of priorities. Indeed, it
must be clear by now that such irritants don’t deserve anything from the
national coffers for their upkeep. They don’t deserve it.
One expects that anybody so supported
by the national coffers must make useful contributions to national development
to merit that largesse. What are the Rawlingses doing to that effect? Of
course, we don’t owe them anything. For all those years that they were in
power, did they not earn salaries to stash away for use in life? Yet, we
continue to give them all that cushions them in life only for them to turn
round to thank us as donkeys do—kicking us the hardest!!
I want to state categorically
that Ghanaians are too tolerant, too patient to a fault, and too cowardly by
accommodating Rawlings and his wife to the extent that they can do or say
anything threatening only to sit back and rejoice that Ghanaians are living in
constant fear of tomorrow in consequence. In their sadistic make-up, they
surely must be satisfied that when they cough, Ghanaians catch a cold!!
It is not as if by working hard
for the NDC to be defeated in politics, they will regain political power or
turn those they have constantly alienated into bed-fellows. Such characters are
not fit for today’s Ghana.
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