Scientists have launched a comprehensive study on the minds of a handful of delusional dictators and former dictators in a desperate quest to understand just how they are wired. These characters make pronouncements that are known lies and fabrications, but they do so with such conviction that not even a polygraph can prove they are lying, and yet they would be knowingly lying through their teeth. These scientists are willing to pay a pretty penny for the bodies of these unique characters when they die so that they can dissect their brain to search for the all elusive clues that would explain the rare phenomenon.

These characters include North Korea’s Kim Song-Il, Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and our very own Jerry John Rawlings. To them, it does not matter much that the whole world may think the sky is up and the ground is down, if it occurs to them that the sky is down and the ground is up, they are right, and everyone else is wrong. And they are willing to go to their grave believing just that. Many countries have the good fortune of not having to put up with any of these characters. Unfortunately, Ghana was not spared this misfortune; we have to deal with Rawlings and his delusional view of Ghana.

Of course NPP-USA takes no delight in describing our former president in this light, but for the sake of posterity, as we perform our duty of setting the records straight, we must also begin to wonder if Mr. Rawlings truly believes the stuff that comes out of his mouth, or if there is anything we can do to help correct the obvious impairment.

Former President Rawlings recently suggested that Under President Kufuor, the security forces were tribalized in favor of the Akans. Now come on. When it comes to lying, there is the reasonable, there is the necessary, and then there is the ridiculous. Rawlings’ suggestion falls in the last category. During the 19-year PNDC/NDC era, the military for example went from roughly 10% Ewe at a time when the Volta Region constituted 6.7% of Ghana’s population, to 24.6% in 2000 for a region that was home to 8.8% of the population at the time. The military’s leadership went from 8.7% Ewe in 1982 to about 29.2% in 2000. So we urge Mr. Rawlings to check the records before he opens his mouth. This disproportionate composition of Ghana's security agencies is the reason why NPP-USA is proposing an Affirmative Action on the hiring and maintaining of Ghana's security forces to reflect Ghana's ethnic diversity.

Yesterday, there was yet another shameless display of twisted irony in Nsawam. Former president Rawlings was opening an cannery that belonged to the government when he was president, but was sold to his wife, then First Lady Nana Konadu Rawlings. REPEAT: a government-owned cannery was sold to the First Lady at the time when her husband was president. Can anyone smell anything – like “conflict of interest?” Unbelievably Rawlings, with a straight face,

had the audacity to accuse Former president Kufuor of taking “over profitable state assets, lands and ran(ing) down Ghana Airways.” For the record, when Kufuor became president, Ghana Airways’ debt was $167 million, all accumulated during the Rawlings era.

Rawlings goes on to accuse the Kufuor administration of creating unemployment when all Kufuor did was reduce Ghana’s unemployment from 33% in 2001 to about 19% in 2008. Furthermore, the man who president over Ghana when the Cedi was 2.71 against the dollar and left the presidency with the Cedi at 10,000 to one dollar somehow mustered the audacity to blame Ghana’s economic woes on Kufuor who quadrupled our Gross Domestic Product, reduced interest rates from 49% to 16%, improved our annual economic growth from 2.1% to 7.6% in eight years, and discovered crude oil in commercial quantities along the way. In short, Ghana blossomed under President Kufuor, which is a far cry from the wanton regression in all sectors that we experienced under a woefully inept President Rawlings.

At some point Ghanaians must take issue with one who insults our collective intelligence. The kinds of fabrications that Rawlings consistently spews into our midst are either a result of a calculated attempt to rewrite history, or are a result of a highly deluded individual who needs a lot of help. If the former is true, then Ghanaians must rise up and say enough is enough about the insulting of our intelligence; if the latter is true, however, then NPP-USA would be first in line to offer the necessary resources to treat the psychological impairment. After all he (Rawlings) is our former president, and we would do our patriotic part to ensure that his sanity is repaired and preserved.