Two Years Under Review
Kathy Anderson
Rawlings, then soliciting the help of Ghanaians to resist any attempt on the part of Dr Limann's government to fight back, promised the nation that Ghanaians would never go through such hardships again. He went further to assure the people of Ghana that he would be prepared to face the firing squad if he failed. As usual, Ghanaians in their collective wisdom, decided to wait and see, even though most people did not consider a military coup d'etat the best way to change a government.
The framers of the 1979 Third Republican Constitution, mindful of the possibility of Ghanaians being deceived into electing either a demagogue or a fickle-minded President, ensured that there shall be presidential elections every four years, and that after serving two terms, no individual could contest for the presidency again. The 1979 constitution therefore gave adequate guarantees to the people of Ghana to exercise their right to change their leader.
No doubt there were lapses, partly because the President lacked leadership qualities, and partly because a section of his party were determined to unseat him. The President had lost control of the Godfathers of his party- they could do what they wanted with the nation's resources. No one was sure whether Dr. Limann was president or these PNP bosses, especially after the death of Alhaji Egala. Power had sunk so deep in the minds of these few PNP Godfathers, that suggestions from the press and parliament were treated with contempt.
The statement accused Dr Limann's government of TACITLY EMBRACING WESTERN CAPITALIST PHILOSOPHY, and invited the Marxist-Leninist faction within the PNP to work hard to ACHIEVE NKRUMAHIST DOMINATION WITH THE AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF CARRYING OUT A NEW TYPE OF NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT IN GHANA.
This, clearly was a call on Dr Limann to abandon the 1979 constitution and to throw overboard the PNP's 1979 election manifesto, even though Dr Limann had assured the nation in his inaugural address in the National Assembly in September 1979, that he would protect and defend the constitution.
MANIFESTO
A section of the party at the same time made every effort to confuse Dr Limann further. On the 71st anniversary of the birth-day of Dr Nkrumah, the the Kwame Nkrumah Revolutionary Guards the New Democratic Movement, founded by Kofi Ayivor and Capt Kojo Tsikata (Rtd) and the June 4th Movement also founded by Major Boakye Djan and Flt-Lt Rawlings as a vehicle to stage a comeback after the AFRC had handed over power, issued a statement calling on the Limann administration to adopt a "Peoples' Democracy" in Ghana and to create PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM.By the end of 1980, these organisations, backed by half-bred socialists and frustrated quasi intellectuals had decided to take advantage of Dr Limann's assurance, and of course, his weakness to fulfil a long standing dream and ambition to seize political power.
This group of anarchists had a useful and effective tool in J.J. Rawlings, who while being prosecuted by G.E.K. Aikins at a military tribunal in May 1979, had managed in an unprecedented manner to shoot to prominence. (It should be noted that this same G.E.K. Aitkins is the PNDC's Attorney General and Secretary for Justice.)
Kojo Tsikata, Special Adviser to the PNDC is reported in an interview on Ghana Broadcasting Corporation television to have said that Rawlings is very naive when matters "touching revolution and socialism come to be discussed". Meanwhile, Rawlings is being presented to Western diplomats in Ghana as Ghana's Allende. This view was orchestrated by some newspapers and magazines in London to create the impression that Rawlings' people's democracy was the best commodity Ghana could import, even though they would not advocate any such system in their own country.
Yet the PNDC government which has become a legend for violence is today in a pitiful mess. Their policy of pulling every successful Ghanaian down has ended in pulling the whole country down to rock-bottom and they would be remembered for their ability to spread poverty and misery, rather than distribute wealth.
Set against Dr Limann's record, Ghana's hospitals are no longer death transit camps: they are mass graves. Hunger and deprivation are the lot of Ghanaians, and they are going through difficulties and hardships never envisaged by the nation's founding fathers.
