Former President Jerry John Rawlings, a few days ago, alleged that ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor monopolized corruption to the extent that America sent the Director of its main intelligence unit, the CIA, to warn Kufuor that ‘if you don’t contain your corruption, there’ll be a coup d’etat and it will be very popular and that’s why America will not be able to help you”.
According to Mr Rawlings, his immediate successor was very autocratic and corrupt during his tenure.
“The difference between John Mills and Kufuor is that Kufuor was so autocratic; they had used the military and the police to subjugate the spirit of the people that he was the only one who could do corrupt things plus his family and those he would allow, and he would jail anybody else who did not have his permission to be corrupt, so there was a way in which his regime looked orderly because nobody else could engage in it except himself or gave you the permission…Kufour's regime got so corrupt that America had to send the CIA boss…to come and warn Kufuor that ‘if you don’t contain your corruption, there’ll be a coup d’etat and it will be very popular and that’s why America will not be able to help you’."
However, in a sharp rebuttal, Frank Agyekum, spokesperson for ex-President Kufuor, stridently denied the claim and even asked the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States, to confirm or deny Mr Rawlings’ allegation.
But a spokesperson for former President Rawlings, Kofi Adams says the CIA is under no obligation to confirm or deny ‘anything’. He said in an interview on Peace FM’s ‘Kokrokoo’ that his boss was not just fabricating stories; “he got his information from an intelligence report”.
“He (Rawlings) got his information from intelligence sources and so Mr Agyekum will not get any response or confirmation from CIA even if he writes to them. CIA doesn’t operate that way. If the documents are classified, there is no way they will give it out…I don’t think President Rawlings will make up such a story,” Kofi Adams added.
Asked if he had spoken to the former President concerning reactions to his allegation, he said: “I have thought it necessary not to bother him on it because many of the reactions are predictable and some of it are very pedestal and so you just ignore. If there was any substantive reaction, I would have told him.”