I started laughing my big head off, the moment I sighted the letter headed “Withdrawal of Comments on Former Presidents” (See “I’m Sorry for Insulting You -Rawlings Apologizes to Kufuor, Mahama” Modernghana.com 5/28/18). I started laughing because, first of all, although the letter appears on the official stationery or letterhead of the former President, it is signed by a Mr. KobinaAndohAmoakwa, described as the Director of Communications for Chairman Jerry John Rawlings. The fact of the matter is that an authentic and sincere apology would almost definitely have been signed by the former strongman himself.

I also know that TogbuiAvaklasu, I, that is his honorary royal stool-name in the Anlo Traditional Area, meant every letter of the words that he allegedly spoke in the presence of the chiefs and people of the Mepe Traditional Area of the Volta. He was among his own clansmen and women and, as usual, found it all-too-convenient and appropriate to stir up his trademark resentment and animosity against that “Asante Imperialist” and the “Treacherous Gonja Boy.”

I won’t even call the letter, at least the copy of which was published by Modernghana.com that I personally read, which, by the way, was clearly unsigned even by Mr. Amoakwa, Mr. Rawlings’ Communications Director, as one that was written and published half-heartedly. Absolutely not! And it is because it clearly reads as if it was written and published by someone who wanted to rub it in, that is, thumb his nose at former Presidents John Agyekum-Kufuor and John DramaniMahama, while at the same time pretending to be acquiescent to the displeasure of the visibly embarrassed people of Mepe, in the North-Tongu Constituency of the Volta Region.

Now, we all know that it is the infamous scofflaw, to wit, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, who presently represents the people of North-Tongu and the Mepe Traditional Area in our august National Assembly or Parliament. And even though in the past Chairman Rawlings has snidely characterized Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa and his ilk among the rank-and-file membership of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) as “babies with sharp teeth,” the language allegedly used by Chairman Rawlings to backhandedly slap Messrs. Agyekum-Kufuor and Mahama across the face, is inescapably one that is in keeping with the rude and primitive temperament of the entire crop of the leadership of the National Democratic Congress, of which the retired Flt.-Lt. Jerry John Rawlings is the bona fide and undisputed Founding-Father.

In other words, the register or the choice of language and the location in which such language was used was perfectly in keeping with the character and established trademark of the speaker. You see, most of Chairman Rawlings’ most damning insults against former Presidents Agyekum-Kufuor and Mahama have been issued while the half-Anlo-Ewe Chairman Rawlings was on tour of the Volta region. The most memorable occasion of such derogatory remarks occurred during the waning months of Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor’s tenure, during the Anloga chieftaincy hostilities which resulted in quite a remarkable number of casualties in late 2008 or thereabouts.

Back then, in direct response to then-President Agyekum-Kufuor’s very wise decision to dispatch a platoon of soldiers from the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) to rein in the violent internecine clashes at Anloga, Chairman Rawlings virulently accused then-President Agyekum-Kufuor of luridly attempting to impose “Asante Imperialism” on the Anlo people. To be frank with the Dear Reader, Chairman Rawlings has said far worse things than merely having Messrs. Agyekum-Kufuor and Mahama severely flogged by Divine Providence in Heaven. If the intended targets of Chairman Rawlings’ travesty of an apology are happy and satisfied with the same, then, of course, the rest of us have absolutely no reason to presume to impugn the same.

I was just wondering, however, whether Ghana’s 1992 Constitution which, by the way, was specially and specifically tailored for the political convenience of the retired dictator, also entitles Chairman Rawlings to use our National Coat-of-Arms on his private stationery or letterheads. Not that it really matters to me one way or another, in view of the fact of Ghana’s having effectively lost its integrity and dignity long ago, with the criminal usurpation of our Third-Republican Constitution by Chairman Rawlings and his Trokosi Nationalist Abongo Boys and Girls.