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Opinions of Saturday, 16 October 2010

Columnist: Sarpong, Justice

Rawlings To Mills, Do To the Judges Like I Did in 1982

Our former President and apostle of probity and accountability for others but
not for himself because he is above the laws of Ghana on this weekend addressed
a festival in Volta region and as usual with this obtuse schdenfreude, inanely
and illogically asserted that, Mills is a failure because he has not jailed his
political opponents. Rawlings want Mills to abduct Judges who fail to convict
his political nemesis and exact his own brand of justice on them as he did to
Colonel Enninful and the three Jidges on two different occassions.

Our apostle of moral correctness Jerry John Rawlings has vowed never to stop
insulting President John Evans Atta Mills in public because he believes the
President is overseeing a country in which the Judiciary, instead of jailing
officials of the past administration, hides under judicial independence to
investigate and re-investigate the allegations before passing judgment. What
murderer Rawlings is failing to understand is that, Mills is ruling a country
under constitutional jurisdiction where he cannot arbitrary arrest and jail his
political opponents because of rumors. Rawlings just doesn't get it that, this
is not 1979 or 1982 when his military rule eliminated Judges and Prosecutors who
have the unfortunate karma to be appoinbted to preside over cases involving him.

" Jerry Rawlings said in most cases, the verdict of the judiciary has
embarrassed the government of the day and though he has on countless occasions
held private talks with Atta Mills over the matter, nothing has changed."

Fellow countrymen, this is scary indeed. What did Rawlings tell President Mills
to do in private meetings concerning the Judiciary? What did he want Mills to do
to reverse the string of lost cases? This is a man who has a history of killing
Judges which he has done on two occassions so what was he telling Mills to do?

In 1979, Rawlings attempted his first coup in May which he failed miserably and
put some soldiers lives in jeopardy. He was arrested and put on trial and was a
few days from a bullet being planted between his eyes when Boakye Djan staged
his June 4TH coup and saved Rawlings from imminent execution. Immediately he was
released from military custody and under guise of going to arrest and put
Colonel Enninful, the military officer who presided over his tribunal trial, he
commanded Captain Bio and his men to go and kill the Military Judge. Colonel
Enninful and his wife were executed in their own house just because he has
presided over his trial. According to eyewitness account, the Colonel and his
wife were lined up and killed like armed robbers and even their pet dogs were
not spared the fury of Rawlings and his men, that was the first time Rawlings
killed a Judge who crossed his path.

In 1982, Rawlings again sent his men during the curfew house to abduct and
kill some judges whose ruling in some cases he didn't like. He dressed his
tribesmen in smocks to disguise them as people from the North who are known to
wear smocks and provided his own car to carry out this lurid and morbid
assignment. One of the Judges, Mrs Cecelia Koranteng Addo who was nursing a baby
was not spared and was killed like Rawlings did to Colonel Enninful's wife.

Rawlings went on to say this;
"Thus he is forced to criticize him publicly because the National Democratic
Congress (NDC) came to power on a campaign promise that corrupt officials of the
past government would be jailed."

So Mr Rawlings want Mills to arrest and jail some officials of the previous
administration irrespective of whether they are guilty or not because they have
to satisfy their fan fool base. Is that the government Ghanaians voted for?
Mills and his administration have been sending people they perceive to be guilty
on trial and continue to lose cases because of ineptitude and lack of evidence
but Rawlings doesn't care whether these people are guilty or not, he wants them
to be imprisoned or if the judges can't jail them, maybe Rawlings want Mills to
adopt his method of justice, abducting and killing judges who fail to tow his
line of reasoning, what thug who masqueraded as a President for twenty years
because he has a gun.

Rawlings continued his rantings with a statement like this;

"The ex- President disclosed that what annoys him most and pushes him to
continue to criticize President Mills is that “some members of the judiciary are
hiding behind judicial independence to embarrass government in cases where
common sense should tell them this is black and not white”

This Idi Amin incarnate was a President, bufoonery at its best, lack of common
sense at its worst. Common sense has no place in law where Judges have to follow
laid down rules and have to rule according to the law and not what this "O"
level nine in chains perceive to be 'black and white'. Anyway why is Rawlings
not helping Mills with all the evidence he brags about having against some NPP
politicians? Let Rawlings give all the "APO"(EVIDENCE) he has against these
Politicians so that Mills Attorney Genral can use them to bolster its cases
against the NPP corrupt Politicians instead of his farcical, sardonic and
sanctimonious pontifications.

Rawlings posited that we cannot call it democracy without the cleansing effect
of justice. Why the word cleansing? Clensing connotes eliminating something by
hook or crook, the same lexicon he used during his heydays as a military ruler
when he was the Judge and the Executioner. President Mills cannot put people in
prison without those people being convicted, something that is hard for this "O"
level graduate to understand.



"The former President made the remarks last Saturday during the Tagbaza festival
of the people of Anlo-Afiadenyigba in the Volta Region. He noted: “We have
wasted precious time in investigating and re-investigating the corruption and
atrocities that were the hallmark of the previous government."

What a paradox, this is what I call grandstanding. Corruption and atrocities can
be middle names for him and his wife;

Jerry John ATROCITIES Rawlings
AND
Nana Konadu CORRUPTION Rawlings.

Rawlings ought to be ashamed of himself with his vindictive self serving and
solipsism. This man is one can short of six pack and somebody better have him
caged before he embarks on a suicide mission in Somalia with his do what I say
attitude and not what I do. His attitude and braggadocio can work in timid
Ghanaians but that stupid attitude can get him in big trouble in Somalia.

Justice Sarpong