The True Democrat has followed and read the so-called statement emanating from the Peace Seekers International (PSI) at the NPP-sponsored news conference in Accra last Monday, October 6, 2008. We are least surprised at the characters and persons who attended the event and what they claim to stand for in our democracy. We, however, respect their right to free speech and their opinions on serious national issues. It is their constitutional right just as any other Ghanaian.

Crucially, the state-managed news conference by the Peace Seekers had all the hallmarks of the involvement of certain elements in national security. Their fingerprints could be detected in this mischievous attempt to heighten tension in the country. In the first place, the ban on the Ex-military commanders was totally uncalled for and exposes the national security set-up as dancing to the tunes of some intolerable freaks in the presidency.

For the Peace Seekers, we think they do not stand for peace but for violence. The tone and language employed at the news conference betrayed their commitment to peace as they claimed. If their main concern is former President Jerry John Rawlings, then the peace they purport to propagate is a sham. The fixation with the past and the belief that there is only one ‘evil man’ in the land capable of causing plunging this country into confusion, anarchy and mayhem is puerile, silly, naive and downright uninformed.

We believe that at this crucial time in our nation’s history, when our constitutional process has reasonably shown some crystallization, the duty of true ‘Peace Seekers’ is to assist lower the political temperature, praise and commend all those who have contributed to democratic development. The condemnation of ex-military chiefs is not going to help anybody. We have ex-soldiers who visited regrettable atrocities on the people of Ghana in the era of the PNDC, now parading in the government of the NPP as archangels.

We have some of these military officers deeply involved in the 31st December 1981 Revolution today demonizing Rawlings and are applauded by the NPP ‘democrats’. This can only come from people with warped minds. Besides, we have such subversives such as A.K. Deku, an active participant in the 1966 overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah as one of the political godfathers of the NPP to whom little is said. If there is any blame at all, the A.K. Dekus, R.R. Amponsahs should be blamed for teaching the young ones the essence of plotting coups.

The True Democrat has looked at the composition of some of the members of the Peace Seekers group. Interestingly, Lt. Col. John Abito wants us to believe that he is wiser than the ex-generals who continue to associate with Jerry Rawlings. He thinks Jerry Rawlings must be treated as an outcast and isolated by those who have served him as the one time Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces. For Lt. Col. Abito and his fellow travelers, the sense of decency might have deserted them on that occasion. Whoever organized them and paid for the news conference really made a fool of them.

The paper also perused the statements purported to have been made by Alhaji Abubakar Alhassan Daa-Naa and Ex-Corporal Attipoe. As for Attipoe, the True Democrat pities him because he belongs to a group of so-called Peace Seekers, in which some of their members were reporting on his subversive activities in exile to the intelligence services in Ghana long before the 2000 elections brought President J.A. Kufuor to political office in 2001. We do not intend to go into details but we can assure Ex-corporal Attipoe that while in self-imposed exile in La Cote d’ Ivoire, those he was dinning and wining with were reporting on their activities. The involvement of some prominent members of the NPP visiting them and the recruitment of some Israeli intelligence officers to train them has been passed on to the authorities in Ghana by some members parading as ‘Peace Seekers’.

The True Democrat is fully aware that these members know themselves and cannot afford to see their names mentioned in the media. It is for this reason that we are convinced that the group is an opportunistic one with the intention of benefiting from the political and financial largesse of those in power. What even strengthens our resolve is the political opportunism of some of these characters, who were hobnobbing with the NDC prior to the 2000 elections, collecting funds and mobilizing voters under the direction of the ‘so-called Verandah Boys and girls Club’.

It is the height of hypocrisy to see such characters parading the corridors of Ghanaian politics as patriots and nationalists. We know them very well and can tell how they use to collect monies from a top NPP member, who is a renowned economist, ostensibly for the so-called dissidents in La Cote d’ Ivoire, show the money to an intelligence operative at the blue Gate and reveal all the plans of the NPP member and what they intend to do by way of invasion of Ghana and then proceed to his exile base to report back to his commanders how he struggled to reach the NPP member using undercover tactics.

There is so much to be said about some members of in this group called Peace Seekers but we intend to hold our fire for now. This group, we contend has no locus and must treated with the contempt it deserves. They are a bunch of reactionaries who are out to make some few bucks, using the sunshine policy of their membership. Ghana and Ghanaians have come very far and do not need such unscrupulous characters to tell them what to be wary off. The NPP’s desperation to justify its ban on ex-military capos using such discredited groups smacks of lost of control and direction within the national security set-up of the nation.

However, we are of the view that the security set-up should move away from the pettiness and demonstrate its readiness and capacity to steer this nation along the paths of peace and stability. This paranoia about Jerry Rawlings and the use of such crass opportunists and scavengers to tear into the persona of ex-service chiefs is not a healthy practice for national security. A national security worth its name must be seen to be operating to protect all the citizens in the land and not allow its apparatus to be manipulated and used as an instrument of division and disorder.