Is Woyome Set To Shred The Fabric of NDC and Permanently Deface Rawlings’ Image?

The latest public outburst of the visibly enraged Mr. Albert Woyome, the besieged target of an investigation into Ghana’s largest known Judgment Debt Payment to an individual, excoriating the former President J. J. Rawlings, and daring him to a duel of personal denigration, provides much material for Social and Political discourse in Ghana. But, most importantly, it does add to the mountain of hardships the President-Elect, Mr. John Mahama, will have to deal with to restore Peace and Order in the Nation.

According to an Article appearing in the Media on December 21, 2012, including the Ghanaweb.com Website, Mr. Woyome has warned that if J.J. Rawlings persists in pressurizing him to cough up the gargantuan loot, he, Woyome, has snatched from the Nation, he would “strip” Mr. Rawlings “naked”. Mr. Woyome claims to know enough dirty secrets about the former President which when exposed would permanently deface the image of the latter.

Whether Mr. Woyome’s claim on this “coup de gras” on President Rawlings is true or not, people realize that his threats amount to nothing less than blackmailing o which he is resorting to repel efforts at retrieving his loot for the Nation. That kind of Woyome’s intimidation for self-preservation benumbs the potency of whatever expose’ he may have to destroy the former President. People would simply view that attempt of Woyome’s with cynicism that could even adequately insulate the President’s reputation. I chose the term “coup de gras” in the face of the much eroded fame of J.J. in recent times.

Woyome may be, however, underestimating a lot in our Politics. As bad as J.J. may be, as notorious as many might consider him to be, there is nothing that Woyome could expose about the former President, now, that would bewitch the country to forget about the $51 Million Woyome has taken from the Nation. Far from doling any accolades on the former President, I am tempted to remind the former Diplomat of the impressive survival record of Mr. Rawlings, whose creation of NDC paved the way to the ascent of Mr. Woyome to any significant eminence, prior to his Woyomegate scandal.

What could be more damning of the former President than the Murder of the three Judges in the late 70’s that some Ghanaians had faulted him for? Yet, the former President managed to survive and retain some dignity that has taken him this far. I wonder what could be more hazardous to the reputation of the former President that its revelation might compel him to cowardly recoil into some little burrow, permanently silenced. That is not to say Rawlings is invincible, but the circumstances under which this final blow Woyome intends to whack J.J. with may not help yield his expected result.

The only necessary precondition that, I think, might lend some credibility to Woyome, in anyway, to help him “strip” Rawlings “naked”, permanently ruining his reputation is for the perceived fraudster to, unconditionally, surrender the gargantuan loot he is still clasping in his bosom, and/or locked up in his safe . Woyome’s credibility is tightly entwined with his stance in the scandal.

The eyes of almost all Ghanaians are stuck on the loot. Nothing else, that emanates from Mr. Woyome, matters. For all folks care, it is the huge object of Corruption that Mr. Woyome and his “Houdini” cohorts have fraudulently conjured out of our hands into his pocket that we are frantically trying to retrieve. The people know it is Mr. Woyome who has the loot, and they want it back, and “pronto”! No amount of distractions would make the Public blink again for another flash of pseudo-legal trickery or magic clear the track of that money. Exposing J.J. would hardly make any difference unless, of course, Mr. Woyome could establish that J.J. has all along been part of his gang which made the heist of the gargantuan loot. And even that rather brings more focus on the loot than detracts from it.

Therefore, let Mr. Woyome quietly and immediately give up the loot, then he could take on J.J. in any arena he deems fit. What Woyome must note, also, is that when J.J. Rawlings goes down, he might take the whole NDC with him into perpetual doom, and Mr. Woyome would not be spared, either. The simple reality is that the Public would hardly let Mr. Woyome win, in any way. Politically, there would not be much left of NDC which could effectively offer Mr. Woyome any form of landing pad to safely break his fall. Mr. Woyome must therefore prepare himself well for his “Murder-Suicide” scheme to end, not only J.J.’s Political relevance and general eminence, but also any meaningful existence of their NDC Party. That would wipe out any expectation of sanctuary from big brother John Mahama, as well.

The other painful, unforgiving complaint against Mr. Woyome is that if he had so much juicy implosive arsenal to sink J.J. and the NDC all that while, why did he wait for so long, and not unleash it before the Elections? It would have prevented our current Electioneering feud, and spared the Nation some fiscal and physical agonies she is enduring now; the NPP would have handily won the Elections and comfortably marched to the Castle. Oh, well, but on a second thought, who says Mr. Woyome ever cares about the welfare of the Nation? He seems to be only obsessed with milking Mother Ghana to the bone. How Patriotic!

Mr. Woyome, it seems, is telling us that either his machination to keep the gargantuan loot rules, or someone else be ruined. If that is not the case, and he considers whatever J.J. Rawlings has in closet as most detrimental to the Country, (more so than the robbery he, Woyome, is perceived as perpetrating on us), then let Woyome prove he’s got the guts and love to save Ghana. This, he can achieve by first giving up the loot and then nailing Mr. Rawlings, and anyone else he knows that has been killing Amma Ghana slowly. Mr. Woyome, by this latest move, has only succeeded in deepening people’s skepticism of his patriotism for Ghana, the Nation in whose name he strutted along the corridors of Diplomatic pageantry and built his personal and business network. We did not see any service Mr. Woyome rendered that deserves any compensation or defraying of costs he incurred to that magnitude of his loot. I am among the first folks to acknowledge that if it could be proven that Mr. Woyome suffered any discrimination by the previous NPP Government abrogating his Contract, then, he deserved some restitution. But such discrimination was not proven to justify any such restitution let alone one with that humongous price tag. Mr. Woyome ought to have considered the sheer size of the financial burden his claim would place on the Nation, instead of any vengeful lessons he intended to teach his offenders, should any breach of his rights be proven. Obviously, the Nation’s interest was not so paramount in his calculations. More, if Woyome has all that Nation-saving information about Mr. Rawlings to reveal, he did not have to ransom our Nation’s Economy to lay it open. No real Patriot should sell any information that might save his or her own Nation for that much ransom, considering Ghana’s struggling Economy.

Again, Mr. Woyome must not count on John Mahama’s likely retention of the Presidency to protect his burglary vault. The People of Ghana would not let stand the blatant theft of the Nation’s assets, anymore. We might not have been smart enough in the past to dare learn of the gross misdeeds our Officials have been inflicting upon us. Time has changed, and many of us “foolish, sheepish” Citizens who let the likes of Mr. Woyomes rob us naked have wised up. There is a proverb in Akan that literally translates: “When the foolish in a game smartens up, the game ends”. Yup! However dumb the Politicians took us for, all these years, we have now found our voice, hearing and sight to know and understand most, if not all, the tricks of the dirty trade of our kleptocratic Politicians--from Contract negotiations to Judgment Debt Payments, to vanishing shiploads of Cocaine, etc. Our Politicians and their cronies must be on notice that we would, sooner than later, catch up with them, and do all we need to do to have them pay for their misdeeds. Right now, I would encourage Mr. Woyome to abort any “Murder-Suicide” intentions of his and just do what is right for all. That sadistic approach of “I-Must-Get-It-or-I’ll-Take-Others-Down-With-Me” may not be necessary, and its abrogation would keep our “house” less messy and help Ghana to heal fast and rebuild. The NDC would remain intact and Woyome might live to have a second chance to provide legitimate service to make clean Millions in dignity. The barking of J.J. in his ear would also cease. Mr. Woyome, in the very least, should consider his moral obligations to the Nation’s poor, and end his case, now, by surrendering the Loot.

Long Live Ghana!!