Ghana’s National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) has explained that the exhumation of the mortal remains of eight persons killed in June 1986 is part of its mandate. The Commission’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Kenneth Attafuah said Section 4 (F) of the NRC’s enabling statute, NRC Act 611 provides that the Commission shall investigate any matters that it considers necessary or appropriate in order to promote national reconciliation.

“Additionally, the Commission’s principal mandate is to reconcile the nation and the process includes a mechanism for people to get well and heal the wounds of the past. The exhumation provides an occasion for those who are feeling hurt and aggrieved whose loved ones were buried in unmarked graves after they had been subjected to torture and to be able to move on with their lives. There is nothing premature about that,” Dr. Attafuah said.

He was responding to criticisms by a section of the Ghanaian populace and also sections of the media, that the recent exhumation by the NRC was premature.

The Executive Secretary who is also a human rights activist said he did not know of any exhumations that should have preceded the one conducted recently on Mawuli Goka, Kyeremeh Djan, Yaw Breko Berko, Charles Aforo, Koomson and others – who were convicted of treason by the defunct People’s National Defence Council (PNDC).

He recalled that the Commission heard evidence from Mr. Christian Goka (brother of Mawuli) who long before April 19, 2003 when the NRC went to the Osu Magistrate’s Court to secure an order for the exhumation exercise, has asked for the digging up of the remains of his brother (Mawuli) for the family to give him a befitting and dignifying burial in accordance with the customs and tradition of the majority of the people of this country.

“Pursuant to that request, the Commission carried out serious investigations and succeeded in locating the grave of Mawuli Goka, who had been executed on June 21, 1986, and buried with seven other people. Those two graves – three in one grave and five in another – were successfully located by the Commission,” Dr. Attafuah said.

He maintained that subsequent to the request by Christian Goka, other family members, including Mrs. Evelyn Owusu (sister of Kyeremeh Djan) also put in their requests.

Buttressing the fact that the exhumation of the eight bodies was not premature nor selective as being alluded to by some media practitioners, the Executive Secretary intimated to the Crusading Guide that there had not been any request made by any petitioner before the NRC for the remains of their loved ones to be dug up which the Commission had failed to act on.

On the issue of the assertion that the exhumation of the mortal remains of the victims of the PNDC excesses is a drain on national coffers, Dr. Attafuah said “the cost of exhuming eight persons and hading over the remains of the identified six to their loved ones cannot be measured in their monetary terms. The grief, hurt, the sorrow which constitute significant barriers to national reconciliation are monumental.”

He disclosed that as at Sunday, September 7, the remains of all the eight persons had been identified by some serious forensic analysis.

Furthermore, “the value of the nation’s ability to find the remains of their loved ones, interred in the bowel of the earth, exhumed and handed over for proper, befitting and dignifying burial in accordance with the customs of this country is phenomenal.”

According to him, the exercise would cost about ?10 million on the whole and that about ?1.2 million would be spent on each person. He saluted the team of pathologists led by Professor Wiredu of the country’s premier hospital, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital who had done a great job of exhuming the remains in such a professional manner.