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Opinions of Thursday, 14 July 2016

Columnist: Sangaparee, Clement

Were cadres really fools?

A revolution is launched to change the attitude and perception of people towards society. It makes them aware of the roles they are to play in society for the Upliftment of human values and for human progress

Did the June 4 uprising change anything from June 1979 to September 1979. The answer is Yes. So many things happened within 3 months where tax evaders, economic saboteurs, both big and small were brought to book and the unlucky ones were tied to the stakes and rightly giving firing squad on the orders of the AFRC Military Junta.

Today 2016, if the yardstick of June 4 is to be used to measure the life styles of Ghanaian Politicians, 90% of NPP members would cross the nearest borders into Togo, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. Surprisingly if the same June 4 yard stick is used to measure NDC members 30% of them will also escape through the same borders with their tails in between their legs fleeing out of cowardice.

What is it? Corruption is back with full strength in Ghana where Public and Civil Servants do not embezzle only millions of cedis but billions and trillions of cedis with impunity.

The Public Accounts Committee will sit in parliament and hear the Auditor General’s presentation of billions and trillions embezzled by Public officials every year and put the files away, collect their fat sitting allowances and go home to sleep after “patriotically serving Mother Ghana”

Good God. All Cadres in Ghana are described as fools by our parents but I doubt it. We were rather fooled by the PNDC and not that we are fools.

The 31st December revolution

When Jerry John Rawlings the former AFRC Chairman handed over power to Dr. Hilla Limann, a died in the wool member of the United Party (UP) which the NPP represent today 2016, he had no pesewa, it was Mr. Kofi Batsa and Okutwer Bekoe who financed his campaign with cash. So when he won the general elections in 1979, the People’s National Party (PNP) on whose ticket he stood was controlled by these two men.

Some people might be surprised to hear me say that Dr. Limann is a UP member. My village and Limann’s village is just 8 miles apart in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Gwollu is his hometown and he is a Sissala by tribe and I am a Dagau and not Dagarti as some people pronounce it.

Having won the elections in 1979 Dr. Limann was instructed by Britain to retire Rawlings from the Ghana Armed Forces, isolate him completely and then eliminate him because Rawlings was more popular than any Ghanaian, including Dr. Limann himself and all his appointees and party thieves.

As a card bearing member of the June Four Movement, we created a platform for Rawlings to launch the 31st December revolution by organizing Ghanaians in the villages, hamlets, cottages Police and Army barracks despite the instructions of Lt. Col. Annor Odjidja, the then deputy director of the dreaded Military Intelligence(MI) to shoot and kill any known member of the June Four Movement on sight, while black propaganda against Rawlings, Captain Tsikata, Brigadier Quainoo,Tsatsu Tsikata and Corporal Alex Dautey were master minded by the director of Military Intelligence himself in the person of Col. Prince Twumasi Ankrah.

Property confiscated by the AFRC government were being returned to their owners and on the instructions eg Dr. Lainann, through Dr. Nasilla, all June 4 members in the Army, Police, Prisons service and all Security Agencies were sacked. In the Public and Civil Service, June 4 members were sacked and in private companies including the mines, workers were sacked including this writer at Ashanti Goldfields along with 107 strong workers.

Many soldiers were arrested, tortured in guard rooms and shot dead for supporting June 4. All active June 4 members knew that 24th Dec 1981 was going to be the launching of the Revolution, but some Air force Officers were arrested and so the Progressive Forces struck on 31st Dec 1981, and succeeded.

The rest is history today. Today some people hate the Rawlinngs boys and yet they are in Rawlings party eating With both hands and feet. We have no time for political misfits and clap trap orators parading as politicians but cannot see anything beyond their stomachs. I shall return

Writer's e-mail: clementsang@yahoo.com