General News of Tuesday, 22 March 2005

Source: GYE NYAME CONOCRD

Rawlings Is A Joker ? CJA kingpin

A leading member of the Committee for Joint Action (CJA), Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan, last Friday urged Ghanaians not to take the insults former President Jerry Rawlings heaped on incumbent President John Agyekum Kufuor during the second ?Wahala? demonstration, serious.

This was because the former president, a known Joker according to him, was in his usual elements and was therefore joking with what he said.

Ramadan, in an in interview with Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM a day after the respectable turn-out of demonstrators at the Chapter II Wahala Demonstration, said that Rawlings? insults on the sitting president must be taken as one of the jokes of the former president.

The former president during a brief moment on the platform diverted his attention from the main purpose of the demonstration, calculated to force the NPP government to reduce petrol prices, and veered into personal attacks on President Kufuor.

Charged and at his musical best, Rawlings churned out various choruses and sang out his own rendition of the NPP key campaign song during last December elections in which he compared Kufuor to the notorious daylight armed robber, Ataa Ayi.

Amidst cheers from the impressive demonstrators, he also called him a thief and ?Abonsan? (the Devil).

The unwarranted attacks brought visible excitement from other key leaders of the demonstration, including Ahmed Ramadan and Charles Kofi Wayo.

Others also had their chance to address the demonstrators as well as ?Atta Ayi Kufuor Abonsan? as the demonstrators nicknamed the President.

Rawlings, before handing over the microphone to the leading members of the demonstrators, also conferred an honorary doctorate on Messer Kwasi Pratt Jnr. and Kofi Wayo respectively.

Questioned by the host of the programme he spoke on, Mr Kwami Sefa Kayi, on whether the CJA would come out to condemn the unprovoked attack on the person of the incumbent Presidemt, Ahaji Ramadan, who is also a leading member of the People?s National Convention (PNC), answered in the negative.

He noted that at an appropriate time, the former president would come out and defend himself.

He therefore pleaded with people not to divert the attention of the public to Rawlings songs instead of the demands of the Wahala demonstrators

He reiterated his conviction that all that the former President said on the Wahala platform against his predecessor were mere jokes meant to create laughter and not to be taken on their face value.

Alhaji Ramadan also advised Ghanaians to appreciate Rawlings? sense of humour instead of condemning him for cracking jokes.