NPP UK’s response to Rawlings @ South Bank University

Our attention has been drawn to the recent speech made by Jerry John Rawlings, former president of Ghana at South Bank University in London. We consider some of the comment he made as unfortunate, to say the least. We are however not in the least surprised that those psychopathic words came from him. We in the NPP UK see Rawlings as no more than circus performer who is so predictable to the extent that sometimes he becomes boring.

In his highly comical speech, Rawlings referred to social injustice and selective justice in Ghana. This is the man who presided over PNDC for ten years and destroyed human rights and freedom of speech. This is the man who supervised the rot of the ARFC days that saw people sent to the gallows for owing the banks and having rank and position in the Armed Forces. This is the man who drove millions of Ghanaians into exile for opposing his agenda. This is the man whose government supervised the dragging of judges from their bed at night to their death at Bundase. This is the man who twice undermined and overthrew ruling governments and so badly set Ghana on a course to social collision. This is the socialist who complains about being given only four houses by the government as his retirement homes. This is the man who is now lecturing us about social justice and selective justice

It is a shame that this man still lives in the 1980s in which he employed Machiavellian principles characterised by his subtle and unscrupulous cunningness, as well as deception and dishonesty to enrich himself and his family and maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a dictator. Our message to Rawlings is to wake up to a new millennium Ghana in which social justice, freedom of speech and rule of law are willed by the people and not given to them by any government.

In his dreams Rawlings still harbours a mentality that he can undermine a constitutional government by calling it all sorts of unsavoury names. Rawlings can talk about a criminal government, an ethnic army and an ethnic party because he has run them in his life as a president of Ghana. This is the man who stands on political platform and cites countries like Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia and Ivory Coast as being victims of the worst phases of Africa’s political instability and national disunity and yet every move and every speech he makes aims at creating the same conditions in Ghana.

We dare you Rawlings, because we know he has no resource, influence or power to organise another coup or indeed destabilise Ghana. We are stronger as a nation and we have the will to survive as a democratic nation. Rawlings’ PNDC went to bed with rogue governments of South America e.g. The Sandinistas of Nicaragua to run guns and drugs. He took our children into “slavery” in Cuba and many did not return. We know that given the chance once more Rawlings will surrender the will of the people of Ghana to another rogue government in South America i.e. Venezuela. For the benefit of Ghanaians, this is the resume of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela who Rawlings visited and solicited support to unsettle the peaceful and democratic rule in Ghana. Chavez led the Bolivian Revolution and holds a vision of democratic socialism and has promoted this vision through his hatred for neo-liberal globalization and US foreign policy. He is a leftist who orchestrated a failed coup d'état in 1992. Chávez's government has evoked exceptional controversy in Venezuela and abroad, receiving massive criticism. Venezuelans see him as an autocrat who has mismanaged the economy. Some foreign governments view Chávez as a threat to global oil prices and regional stability, and he personally an authoritarian demagogue. Chávez remains one of the most complex, controversial, and interesting figures in contemporary politics.

It is no surprising that since he returned from Venezuela, Rawlings has become very anti-Western in his stance. Now from this resume you can delete Chavez and insert Rawlings and how perfectly it would match.

Venezuela still rings a rather disturbing and chilling bell in Ghana with the cocaine saga. This is a nation that brought Vasques and his cocaine business to Ghana and to have your former President visit this nation in itself is an indictment on Rawlings and the NDC and convinces us that he knows about Robert Mettle Nunoo’s dealings with these Venezuelans. We sincerely believe that a future NDC government will seek to open drug routes with Venezuela, something they have started to do but hindered by the vigilance of the government. If the NDC accuses the NPP of running drugs, well let us conduct this simple survey - Just put Rawlings and Kufour on a pedestal and tell even an alien from Mars to point out which of the two is likely to dabble in drugs - the choice is obvious. Need we spell it out? If the answer is even so obvious to an alien then it must be easy for us earthlings who know their history

Rawlings disturbingly also seeks to drag UN Secretary General Kofi Annan into his politics of insults, intimidation and sheer idiocy. Even if Mr. Annan made that comment, which we do not believe, it is childish for him to come and stand before youthful students to make such disparaging comment about this international statesman. Rawlings is unstable and cannot be trusted as a person. We believe that Rawlings’ attack on the judiciary is a selfish pre-emptive strike to protect his wife who is in the grip of the law over the 31st December dealings in the divestiture programme under the corrupt NDC regime. The former first lady is standing trial with others on 30 charges for their alleged role in the divestiture of GIHOC Nsawam Cannery to Caridem Development Company Limited. He is selfishly protecting his wife by attacking the judiciary and we harbour genuine fears for the lives of these judges sitting on these matters in a future NDC government because of the lessons we learnt in 1982. Rawlings calls the NPP government corrupt and yet it is his wife and ministers who are before the courts and in some cases convicted for acts of corruption under his NDC government. We challenge Rawlings to give us one instance of corruption with facts and figures as they did in the Quality Grain and other sordid deals.

Rawlings’ attack on the media gives a clear indication of his intention to clamp down on them in a future NDC government and reintroduce the Criminal Libel Act. Mr. Rawlings must learn and quickly so, that a free press in Ghana as it is everywhere in the world is one of the foundations of a democratic society. Walter Lippmann, an American columnist once wrote, "A free press is not a privilege, but an organic necessity in a great society," and Ghana is no exception to this. So stop blabbing about the press and grow up as democrat and an elder statesman.

Rawlings also showed his lack of respect for the electoral process by asking the President to prove to the nation how he won in the last election. This is infantile as Rawlings does not seem to realise that it is the Electoral Commission that declares who has won in an election and not the President to prove.

For Rawlings and his stooges we have got this stark message for you: You have had a field day pouring heaps of insult on NPP and President Kufour all this while. We have been following all this vituperations and thoughtless comments you have been spewing out and peddling everywhere insulting some rather dignified people, casting aspersions and insinuation, and yet showing utter disrespect to the press who publish them. We have so far kept a dignified silence even in the face of such stark provocation. Its not that we cannot give it back to you, but then you and the NDC think you can take everyone for granted and that you can make unmake anybody at your whim. That was 1980s stuff. This is the 21st Century. Here now begins the rebuttal. From today we are going to strike back and really hard. These pernicious, capricious and odious comments must be put exactly where they belong - the sewage. We are about building our country and keeping it where it rightly belongs in the comity of nations, that is the pledge of NPP to Ghanaians and Ghanaians are expecting no less.

God bless you all.

Hayford Atta-Krufi

Chairman for and on behalf of NPP UK and Ireland