Jerry John Rawlings
Daniel Dugan has described as unguided comments the latest criticism of President John Agyekum Kufour by his predecessor.
The former Deputy Minister of Fisheries has said erstwhile President Jerry John Rawlings lacked the moral rectitude to blame his successor for the floods in Accra, asking what he did as President when Accra recorded the deadly floods in July 1985?
He also described the claims by Rawlings as mere publicity stunts meant to make him look like saints while covering up for his decimal performance in his nineteen years in office as the president of the country.
In obvious reaction to the criticism of former President J.A Kufour by former President Rawlings, Dugan said such criticism by a man of his stature were merely self-serving.
Mr. Dugan on Thursday threw sentiments away and confronted President Rawlings in a bid to get respect from him on the incessant attacks on President Kufour at the least opportunity without provocation.
Read below the full letter to Rawlings…….
- John Rawlings, Please the Word is Respect!
Dear J. John Rawlings,sa
In humility, I just want to respectfully advise Your Excellency about the word, Respect and other matters.
I was in Oti region over the weekend for a funeral when a cousin showed me a picture of you seated on the same pew in what could pass for a church, with three other NDC gurus. They were from your left, Mr Bani, H.E. John Dramani Mahama and Mr. Sylvester Mensah. I was told it was at the burial service of the late Gen. Ahiaglo. Your posture in the picture clearly demonstrated that you were at serious loggerheads with at least one of your co-tenants on the pew. Whatever be the case I believe you got it all wrong carrying personal sentiments that far. It does not speak well of you as a statesman at all. Rather than drawing sympathy, it has rather made you an object of ridicule. I am sorry, but that is how many people saw it even including members of your NDC.
Dear Sir, the main subject I want to touch on is your conduct especially towards, ex-President Kufuor and Ghanaians as a whole.
Recently you went booming again accusing the Gentle Giant for been the course of all sorts of bad things going on in this country. You are alleged to have said that but for tolerance of Ghanaians and the country’s poor justice system your immediate successor would have never been walking free. You added that he was the one responsible for the perennial floods in the capital by encouraging indiscriminate siting of buildings in waterways.
Did you truly make those statements? Now let us begin with the tolerance and poor justice system. On Monday June 4, 1979 you rebounded into the limelight after Capt. Boakye Gyan freed you from the claws of death to offer you the chairmanship of the AFRC. You then hastened the entry into grave, some top army personnel and three ex-heads of state. People you murdered had according to you committed unpardonable crimes like overthrowing constitutional governments and borrowing money from the bank to put up their houses.
Papa Jerry, you killed people for overthrowing civilian administrations and promised June 4 was the coup to stop all coups. So, what happened on December 31, 1981? Yes, what role did you play to go back on your word and commit the same crime you murdered others, for? Like seriously, do you expect to be alive all these thirty-eight years if indeed Ghanaians were not tolerant and Ghana having as you hope for, a good justice system?
You made some families fatherless and yet today, you who deserve to also be killed for committing the same crime can partake in family portraits with father, mother and children fully present. Where is justice when one uses power to end other people’s lives but continues to live freely even after committing the same crime? Have you seriously reflected on how lucky you are to be in a country like Ghana? So please do not insult our intelligence and tolerance by saying someone who never joined you in those murderous adventures is lucky to be walking free.
I need to remind you that some of your colleagues in the AFRC are saying you got it all wrong by killing those senior army personnel and ex-heads of state and they are pushing for an opening of enquires into the legitimacy and acts of the AFRC; something which the tolerance of Ghanaians and poor justice system have not made possible.
In fact, there are lots of questions about the AFRC which needed to be answered. Lt.Col Abaka-Jackson’s book mentions somewhere that the June 4 was plotted many years earlier by the socialist boys in the army to restore socialism started by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. So, the socialist boys came back with the socialist system of killing anyone who had diverse views. A lot of souls were lost during those dark bloody seasons in our country and with that some of your former colleagues are also claiming that it was ethnic cleansing. The Akans, especially the Asantes were to be killed off.
Now you claimed that ex-President Kufuor is responsible for the perennial floods in the capital, something which makes you a hypocrite, sorry if you do not like that tag.
July 5, 1995 and June 13, 1997 were dates which recorded the most severe flooding in Accra and they both fell during your nineteen years of reign as head of state of this country. What were you able to do to at least prevent a reoccurrence of the deadly floods in July 1995? Two years on another one struck leading to loss of lives and properties and that showed you lack the desire to right the wrongs caused by flooding.
When ex-President Kufuor assumed the seat of governance, he saw to the expansion of the storm drain that carried the Odaw River which minimized the volume of floods in the Odaw drainage area.
You spite JA Kufuor so much so that it is really frightening. Because of that you rejected his government’s invitation to you to come and jointly celebrate Ghana’s 50th anniversary; how petty! During CAN 2008, you refused to sit in the VIP box to watch matches because you were spiteful of Kufuor and his administration, how petty! You rejected an X’mas hamper from the Kufuor government and wondered why Atta Mills never did the same; how petty!
Yet when your own NDC, during the reign of Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, flatly rejected you and your family, awarding just 3.1% of votes to your wife Nana Konadu during presidential primaries, you run to ex-President Kufuor falling all over in admiration of him and his family. You even honoured his private event and allowed your wife to dance with him; what hypocrisy after rejecting his invitation to join him in a national event! What ungratefulness as well after all that the Kufuors did for you, providing food and shelter for you and your family when you were all thrown out of your own home.
Today, you claim the Gentle Giant is a criminal, but just halt there. If he is a criminal, then what are you? The only governments you believe were the best in Ghana were the AFRC, PNDC, NDC 1 and NDC 2 all of which you were head of state. You once said all Kwame Nkrumah did for Ghana was to give us a national flag and national anthem, did you not?
So, what happened to Account 45 which you created during the AFRC days for tax dodgers to pay taxes in? Where is the money? What happened to the 50 cedi notes you withdrew from the system during the PNDC era? During your NDC days why did you fail to respond to appeals by top journalists to clarify some reports by the world press that your government dealt in hard drugs and your wife own a gold refinery and jewellery shop in Switzerland? And you rather jailed those journalists, for seeking the best for Ghana and your administration. Why did you recall deputy ambassador Benneh from Switzerland when he was arrested there for drug related offences? Remember you had earlier endorsed a world order to remove diplomatic immunity cover of diplomats caught in drug related offences so that they could be tried in the countries they committed the crimes in. Why did you go back on your word?
Why did you call people names when it came out that security details had stolen ₵100 million from under the bed of your minister, Obed Asamoah? You came to his defence that he never embezzled any money.
Why did you rubbish CHRAJ findings and recommendations that three of your top ministers had questions to answer as to how they funded their lifestyles with mansions they built? Why did you use Government White Paper to cleanse them of the crimes they committed?
On your person, where did you get that much money to acquire such property in estates, mini castles and houses, cars, horses and bank accounts among others when you had earlier murdered someone whose only crime was to borrow money from the bank to put up a simple house?
And recently you had acquired a large estate of 4.3 acres of land in the Ridge prime area of Accra for peanut leasehold of GH₵10.00 per annum for ninety-six years. Ghanaians are indeed tolerant not to revolt against such injustice. How much do you think that poor person, of whom you killed people to better his life, is paying monthly for a single room in a slum area? At least GH₵40.00 a month making it GH₵480.00 a year, making almost fifty years of your leasehold payments of the 4.3 acres and that single room will not be even 0.1% of an acre.
Your Excellency J. John Rawlings, please give Ghanaians the respect we deserve and do not drag us into your personal tantrums. How can you believe that you are the best leader we ever had and will ever have when everything points to the fact that you are the worst? You want us to follow and praise you all the time so that what you see wrong we must also agree is wrong and what you see right we must agree and say it is right even if in both cases the opposite is the truth.
You proclaimed honesty, probity and accountability about your AFRC/PNDC/NDC and yet today you claim the current NDC is full of corrupt people and babies with sharp teeth. So, who brought up all these people and how come only you are holy, and the rest are demons?
Lastly, may I find out why you loathe JA Kufuor so much? I heard that when he took over as president you developed the habit of summoning him to meet you in secret places to discuss only what you had in mind. When you were made to understand that you could not summon a sitting president as if he was your appointee, you decided to descend heavily on him? Can you clarify the above?
Please respect Ghanaians and you will earn our respect, for even in your own NDC you do not matter to many.
Have a good day.
Hon Daniel Dugan
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