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General News of Thursday, 19 February 2004

Source: Chronicle

Rawlings Nails Tsikata - Capt. (rtd) Felix Nii Okai

AN EX-OPERATIVE of the defunct Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) has dismissed as ?all lies?, ex-President Jerry John Rawlings? evidence at the National Reconciliation Commission in spite of swearing the oath to tell the truth.

Captain (retired) Felix Nii Okai, former liaison officer in charge of the students and youth task force, said by the same token the former chairman of the PNDC jeopardized the exoneration of Captain Kojo Tsikata, his national security adviser from accusations of his alleged involvement in the killings of the three judges and a retired army officer in June 1982.

According to him, his observation was informed by the failure of Mr. Rawlings to produce the audiotape and video recordings as requested by the commission when he appeared before it last week.

Speaking exclusively in an interview with The Chronicle in Accra, Captain Okai said: ?It was unbelievable to hear Flt. Lt. Rawlings state that those vital items were either missing or given to a dead man who cannot talk, knowing the gravity of both the audiotapes and video recordings?.

He said it was critical for the former President, who claimed that the audiotape vindicated Kojo Tsikata in his alleged involvement in the murders, to produce the evidence.

?Rawlings must produce the requested items by the NRC to prove to the whole world the innocence of Kojo Tsikata rather than shroud it in mystery,? he pointed out.

Captain Okai said he was dismayed and shocked at the evidence by Mr. Rawlings that he took on the role of a reverend minister to ask Joachim Amartey Kwei who was then tied to the stakes, to confess by saying his final words to cleanse his soul before meeting his creator.

He said Flt. Lt. Rawlings was only trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Ghanaians and called on him to openly come out with the facts instead of resorting to ?a dead man?s evidence?. ?Dead men don?t talk?, he declared.

Commenting on media reports that the ex-President threatened ?to deal with the NPP at the appropriate time,? he said such comment was uncalled for. ?It was absolutely wrong for the former president, the only surviving ex-head of state, to say that he would deal with the NPP.?

He said some of them, including the government would not allow anybody to subvert or make the country ungovernable, adding that the nation needed peace for development.

The ex-Captain played down the significance of the huge crowd that turned out in support of the ex-president, saying it was wrong for people to support somebody for doing a wrong thing.