By Otchere Darko

Reference: “We had no choice. We thought 'let two go'. Acheampong and a certain Utuka, very corrupt Generals. They were sacrificed. It was not enough. Ladies and gentlemen, 10 days later, we had to sacrifice another six and some of the Commanders were innocent good people but it had to be done because the rage in the country was too high, too much,” (Extracted from (1) Ghanaweb General News of Thursday, 9 January 2014, Sourced: radioxyzonline.com and (2) Ghanaweb General News of Friday, 17 January 2014, Sourced: adomonline]
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When I read the above news report for the first time through the 9th January edition of Ghanaweb, provocative as it sounded, I decided that I would not waste time to write about it. However, roughly a week later, following another Ghanaweb publication today (Friday, 17 January 2014), I now feel compelled to write to caution Mr Jerry John Rawlings that, as a result of his ‘loose talking’ that allows him to make ‘childish’ self-admission of wrong doing, he risks provoking one of the many victims of his past atrocities to feel so angry that he (such victim) may decide to take the law into his own hands and “seek vengeance” in his (victim’s) own way, despite the constitutional protection afforded him (Rawlings) by the 1992 Constitution.

Rawlings must understand that, when it comes to justifying the killings that took place in Ghana during his two military regimes, it is not he (Rawlings) who can “act as judge and jury” over his actions. Rather, it is Ghanaians and Ghana’s law courts that can play that role. By forcing the drafters of the 1992 Constitution to put into it “transitional provisions” that make it impossible for offended relatives of victims of his past atrocities to seek justice at the law courts, he (Rawlings) has had the hands of relatives of such victims of his past atrocities tied behind their backs. If he (Rawlings) was ‘sensitive’, he would not ‘put pepper on wounds’ of relatives of his past victims.... victims who, according to Rawlings himself, included “some of the commanders [who] were innocent good people”.

Since Mr Rawlings’ crude, wicked, and insensitive statement was first reported in the Ghanaian media, two angered relatives of victims of his past brutalities, Kwabena Agyepong and Okatakyie Henry Amankwaa Afrifa, have separately responded in ways that may be described as ‘civilised’.

The Agyepongs and the Afrifas may have reacted in a ‘civilised’ and ‘lawful’ manner, angry though they may feel inside them, as a result of the recent provocative utterances of ‘loose talking’ Rawlings. If Rawlings, who has been described by one Ghanaian as “the luckiest” person in Ghana, continues to “put pepper in wounds” he (Rawlings) opened in several Ghanaian homes across the country in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, he must know that he may out of luck in future and may fail to get similar ‘civilised’ reactions from angered relatives of his past victims who included “innocent good people” that, according to Rawlings own “self-admission” above. *When food that should not enter the body is put into it, the stomach, like an angry man, finds a way to vomit it out.

When a child unknowingly ties a knot around its neck to hang itself, we feel sorry for its soul. However, when an adult, like Rawlings, knowingly or unknowingly ties a knot around his neck to hang himself, we, as bystanders, can only ask the question:

Why should a sensible adult tie a knot around his neck, when he knows, or ought to know that he can eventually get hanged by it?