Treat Rawlings' talk as academic exercise - Spio Garbrah

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) former Minister of Education, Ekow Spio Garbrah, has described Ex-President Rawlings controversial interview as one that should be subjected to academic analysis.

He said even though the full tape of the interview is not being made available, the excerpts taken out has been blown, only to the extend that there were references to the circumstance under which coups take place or coups might take place.

To think that the former President just gets up in the morning and talks about coup is unfortunate", he added.

Mr Spio Garbrah gave this overview of ex-President Rawlings interview on Joy FM last Friday on the Frontpage programme and said, Mr Rawlings was just analyzing the causes of coups and this is why he immediately said "Rawlings is not asking for coup, Rawlings is not interested in coups.. but if you want to know when coups take place then these are among the factors which lead to coups."

According to him, Mr Rawlings interview was based upon a request by Mr Charles Haviland, of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in a letter dated on 13 June, 2001. The letter had specifically asked him to be part of a series of interviews that BBC was conducting with a number of African current leaders and former, and individuals who may have been involved in coups or who understand how the military has intervened in politics in Africa.