Memo to: Flt. Lt. Jeremiah John Rawlings

Memo to: Flt. Lt. Jeremiah John Rawlings alias Gyamfi Paul
Ridge Estates, Accra

From: Kofi Ellison
Washington, D.C., USA

Subject: Your Recent Outbursts

Sir:
It will interest you to note that I am one of those who wished you well in your retirement. Such is my interest in the subject of your healthy retirement that I have taken to offering some suggestion as to how you should behave as a retired former president of the republic of Ghana. I do so not out of pretentiousness or a propensity to interfere in your personal life. In fact, what you do in your personal life is of no importance to me, at all. However, as a Ghanaian, your behaviour and activities especially as they pertain to our country matters a whole lot to me. Indeed, it will be unpatriotic for any Ghanaian to remain aloof if your utterances and activities were deemed to be a threat to the security and stability of Ghana.
Hence, my first memo to you in October 2000. In that memo, I congratulated you for your statesmanlike decision to not seek an unconstitutional third term in office. I suggested at that time that your international profile as a former president of Ghana was higher than any African except Mr. Nelson Mandela's. As such, you could become a spokesman for Ghana and Africa on the myriad issues and problems facing our dear continent. Since you had suggested to a BBC reporter that you wanted to ‘fight mosquitoes', the carriers of the deadly malaria disease; I figured that was a good start for you.
When the elections were held and your party led by your chosen presidential candidate lost, you accepted the matter in good faith. After all, that is the nature of politics and power. The recently retired president of Mali, Alpha Oumar Konare suggested the other day that holding power is like running a relay at a track meet. The baton must be passed on to the next runner. Mr. Konare was right. If one holds on to power like a marathon runner, one risks collapsing in th end!
You gracefully ceded power to Mr. J.A. Kuffour; and in a spirit of unity and maturity, you embraced the new president as if to inform that all that campaign bantering were over. Ghana's UN Chief Kofi Anan appointed you as a "UN Goodwill Ambassador" to provide you an outlet to showcase your talent on the world stage. Again, I wrote to offer congratulations. I suggested at that time, that you must not become a fixture like the ghost in the Ghanaian folklore who hangs around the neighborhood to terrorize children. We call such a ghost "Osaman Twentwe", or the ghost who refuses to rest in peace at the cemetery. It is a reviled figure. My hope was that you would not become such a figure.
Sadly, your tantrums, your public outbursts, your behaviour, and your demands since you left office leaves me with no choice but to conclude that you have become "Osaman Twentwe". Jerry, you have become a bad ghost who wishes to bring nothing but trouble to the living. Why this conclusion from me?
Well, there is a certain day on our calendar that you have enshrined as a day to offer presents to your gods. In a free country, you could do that within respectable boundaries of decorum and national interest. However, you insist on assailing our intelligence on that day. You insist on drawing us into a fight on that day. You wish to force us to acknowledge your hollow day as a holiday. You insist the day proffers some benefits to Ghana.
Rather, Ghanaians are united in their view of the day as a "dabone" or a bad day; a day that reminds Ghanaians that your so-called ‘jihad' for "accountability and probity" in national affairs was nothing but an opportunity for you and your cronies to gain wealth at national expense. Sir, you are a far cry from the malnourished figure you cut on your said day that seems like eons ago. Sir, you are now a well-fed guy who would make fitness gurus disappointed. You are also a wealthy person able to educate your children in the best schools in Europe and America. Ghanaians do not begrudge your arriviste attitude. But, please cut off all the pretense of being the Yaa Asantewaa of the down-trodden and dispossessed in our society. The character that fits you now is Mr. Reverse Robin Hood. You robbed the poor to help enrich yourself and your cronies.
What you conveniently fail to grasp is that you left Ghana in an unspeakable mess. Our economy and infrastructure are beyond collapse. The current government is faced with a herculean task of cleaning the mess that you left behind. Ghanaians wish, with one voice that you would leave us in peace to do just that. When you use the freedom that you are afforded (which you denied others), to insult our leaders, then you've gone too far. When you use the same freedom to couch your speeches in coded language about an imminent uprising in Ghana, then you have committed a treasonous offence.
Jerry, do not for once think that you're the wisest person, the most able, the best accoutered individual to lead Ghana. You are not. You are a lousy egomaniac unable to comprehend that you've had your day, and your train has left the station. You imposed yourself on us for nearly 20 years and Ghanaians are relieved to be rid of you. Nor should you think that Ghanians are afraid of your person, because we are not. We are consumed in a collective task of rebuilding our nation. Do not for once presume our civility to be a sign of weakness. We can become as vulgar; uncouth; and cantankerous as you are. But we have better things to do. Yet, if you keep stretching our civility to its limit, you risk unspeakable consequences. Be advised.
Finally, do you realize what harm you are doing to Ghana's international standing by your irresponsible behaviour and claims of an impending national imbroglio? What investor will do business with Ghana when you falsely prophesy impeding doom and gloom.
By using your speeches on your day of contrivance to attempt to sow seeds of disunity and fear in our nation, you have descended to a level of "Opanyin to-to". By your behaviour, you have become an unworthy elder; a despicable elder; indeed, an elder who deserves neither applause nor respect. I remain, for now!

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