Is Rawlings ready to be executed?

The death penalty is one of the few issues I vacillate on and therefore will not criticize anybody on any position they take, whether against or for. My problem is that, somebody might be executed and later found out the person was not guilty and there is no remedy to ameliorate that wrong. On other times, a crime is so heinous there is no other punishment except death penalty, I therefore have no problem with President Rawlings call for murderers to be executed. The message is alright with me except the nessenger who has no moral right to call for others to be executed for murders when he has admitted killing others.

President Rawlings called for the execution of murderers yesterday when the family of the slay Abuakwa North Member of Parliament, J.B Danquah's informed him about his death and this is what he said:



General News of Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Source: classfmonline.com

Rawlings: Murderers must be executed


"Our constitution empowers us and gives us the right to punish, to exact the same level of punishment and if we cannot do it, to serve as a lesson, to those who are taking others' lives with ease, then please I'd like to use this occasion – I should have done this a long time ago – to invite Parliament to consider the need to look into our constitution as to whether we should not now empower the regional security councils to sign or to approve the taking of a life for a life," Mr Rawlings said when the family of the late J B Danquah-Adu visited the former President at his residence in Accra on Wednesday, March 16. "

IF THAT IS PRESIDENT RAWLINGS POSITION ON DEATH PENALTY, IS HE WILLING TO BE EXECUTED SINCE HE HAS ADMITTED TO KILLING YEYE BOY? NOW READ RAWLINGS ADMISSION OF KILLING SOMEBODY WITHOUT ANY COURT JUDGEMENT.


WHY I KILLED 'YEYE BOY'-Rawlings Confesses

By Daily Guide - Daily Guide General News | Sat, 04 Nov 2006

Several years after the series of bloodletting, atrocities and disappearances that characterised Jerry John Rawlings' military juntas, some of the motives behind the sinister acts are beginning to unfold, this time from the horse's own mouth.The leader of the bloodiest regime in Ghana's history, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, claimed that his main reason for ordering the execution of Torgbui Akakpovi Ahiaku, popularly called, Yeye Boy of Atidzive, near Abor in the Volta Region, as well as other traditionalists, was to demonstrate to their people that juju does not pay. The former President and founder of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), after nearly three decades of silence, was virtually compelled to blow off the lid at a press conference in his Ridge residence last week Thursday.

With no sense of remorse whatsoever, Mr Rawlings, an apostle of fetishism, boastfully said Yeye Boy in particular, was killed to send a strong message to fetish priests that juju was a sham. According to Mr. Rawlings, the execution of the jujumen, who were suspects of ritual murder in their communities, was to let the people know that there was no salvation in juju. At the conference, a female TV Africa reporter had wanted to know whether the country, and therefore the citizenry, was any safer now, than in the revolutionary days. Obviously not satisfied with the responses from Victor Gbeho and other spokespersons like Dr Benjamin Kumbuor, the unrelenting lady reporter insisted on a specific answer to her question, which prompted the former president to tell the world, the 'hidden truth'.

Rawlings said, Talking about the lady's question on safety, we talked of the murder of the judges and the punitive action that was taken, and I also talked about my brother's son. When people commit ritual murders and we catch up with them and the chiefs and timber merchants, and we execute them right in their villages for people to think that juju has not saved them, then we are violent people? he asked..

Yeye Boy, the fetish priest of Atidzive, near Abor in the Volta Region, was abducted from his home by armed soldiers in 1982 and bundled into a waiting military vehicle.
That was the last time his relatives saw, or heard of him. A few days after his abduction from Atidzive, his charred, mutilated body was discovered in a bush along the Accra-Ho road. He was not tried in any court of law or even military tribunal, and no official explanation had since been given for his execution. However, there was the strong suspicion that it was part of the witch-hunting exercise embarked upon by the leadership of the PNDC.
Rawlings' chilling confession may now give his family the respite, as regards the sin of the once revered jujuman. Dozens of vehicles and properties registered in Yeye Boy's name were looted, while several of his relatives and children were forced to go into hiding, after his sadistic murder. Unofficial sources suggested human ritual, but his execution was not announced, as were the cases of the generals.

In the wake of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) two years ago, the children of Yeye Boy petitioned the commission and after thorough investigations, the committee recommended reparation and apology for his death. Torgbui Akakpovi Ahiaku was the 111th person on the reparation list and his family is to be given ¢20m.. Hundreds of fetish priests, traditional rulers, students and soldiers were murdered in similar manner, a number of whom were suspected of committing crimes as minor as indebtedness.
Yeye Boy's execution was one of the most chilling stories heard by the Justice Amoah-Sekyi-led NRC.

The Commission was informed by a certain Mathias Kudzo, who was at the time of the murder, a soldier with the Ho Mortar Regiment and a close Rawlings confidante, that he was part of the team that raided Yeye Boy's location after an order for the action was received from Accra.
The jujuman was rumoured to have been a voodoo consultant for Rawlings in the heady days of the revolution, but attracted his wrath when he was reported to have asked for the clothing of the junta leader.


As Bombardier Mathias Kodzo related, when a close friend of Rawlings heard about the request which he (Yeye Boy) had made, it was believed that he drew the attention of the junta leader to a rumour that the late General E.W.K. Kotoka, one of the architects of the 24th February 1966, had obliged to a similar request by the jujuman and paid dearly for it.On hearing this, the NRC was told, Rawlings grew furious and allegedly ordered, Go and bring the bastard whereupon his hounds charged on Yeye Boy, seized him and eventually subjected him to a gory death.

In fact, the whole of Atidzive suffered the wrath of the soldiers, who descended on the village to carry out the orders. Bombardier Kodzo, now a man of God, showed visible remorse for having taken part in that operation, when he took his turn before the NRC.That was the closest Ghanaians got to knowing what had happened to Yeye Boy, whose abduction and subsequent death, like many others in the course of the so-called revolution, was shrouded in mystery."

Justice Sarpong

(CRDINAL of TRUTH)