In July 1979, he burst onto the political scene with fire and brimstone. A lean hungry and angry junior military officer, he overthrew a military dictatorship that many Ghanaians had come to abhor. He later justified his coup with the reason that life had become very hard and unbearable for Ghanaians, and that he himself could not even afford yokegari.
From June 4th 1979 to September 24th 1979, he embarked on a brutal house cleaning exercise against corruption that saw the execution of three former Heads of the State and five other senior military officers, supposedly tried and found guilty by a secret kangaroo court.
On September 24th 1979, Dr. Hilla Liman, a democratically elected President assumed the Presidency. He was the only President of the third republic and the only northerner ever elected to this high office.
Having tasted and loved the perks that come with the presidency, this elementary brute again overthrew the democratically elected government of Dr. Hilla Liman after only two years in office. He then subjected Dr. Hilla Liman to a life of humiliation, alienation, deprivation and emotional torture until his sad demise in 1998.
With pressure from within and outside, the PNDC was metamorphosed into the NDC. This P/NDC was booted out of political office in 2000, but bamboozled their way back to power in 2008. Since that time, this yokegari guy has sought to cast himself as a saint, accusing every Ghanaian especially former President Kufour and his administration as the most corrupt and murderous in the history of Ghana. He has not even spared his Swedru anointed, his Excellency, Prof. John Atta “Mess” Mills, alias Baba Go Slow of inefficiency, corruption, maladministration and filling his administration with greedy bastards and hangers on.
All this while, this man has been living an ostentatious lifestyle, the source of his wealth unknown. It is said that he is the richest Ghanaian alive, from rags to riches indeed. Recently, a concerned Ghanaian group led by Mr. Abdul Mohammed Dorsey and Harriet Mills Robertson (UK residents) have published the hidden assets of the former first couple, and it is very disheartening indeed. Accordingly their source , the 2008 fifty most corrupt African leaders, the Rawlings family has millions of dollars stashed away in the United Arab Emirates, Cuba , Brazil , Nigeria , Congo Brazzaville, Malaysia , UK , Libya, South Africa and Switzerland. Apart from their cash and gold deposits, the man who has no place to lay his head after his government allocated mansion at Ridge got burnt, is said to have numerous homes and properties spread around the country. Listed among them are hotels and homes in the Volta Region and in Accra, Sogakope, East Cantonments, Kaneshie , Akwamufie and Aburi etc.
The former president has kept quite in all these allegations. Wise old men have always maintained that silence is golden, but silence also means consent. The deafening silence of the former first couple implies that there is truth in all these allegations, considering the free for all corruption that characterized his administration.
If former President Kufour was a thief, then he Rawlings and his cohorts were armed robbers. They depleted State coffers with impunity, sold all state enterprises, pocketed the proceeds and mortgaged our future. All this was done while Egya Atta “Mess” Mills was the second gentleman of Ghana. As Americans will ask, did he know anything about this, when did he know it, and what did he do about it? If he did not know anything about this, then he must be blind indeed. He too must tell Ghanaians what went on and the extent of his involvement.