Rawlings: The Man Behind The Mask
by A Correspondent
And yet for someone who has been in the public eye for so long, J.J.Rawlings is practically unknown. Two and a half years after his return to power, the character of the man remains a mystery.
It seems as if there is a deliberate effort by his image builders to present him as an honest, pure, selfless and a courageous leader.
A man of considerable charm, those who have fallen under his charm think he is the best thing that ever happened to Ghana. Yet without a single exception, those who know him well think he is a con-man and a thug posing as a Head of State.
Who is Rawlings? Born about 35 years ago in Accra to a Ghanaian mother and Scottish father, he was educated at the Adabraka Roman Catholic Primary School, Penworth Preparatory School before entering Achimota College. After leaving Achimota without a school certificate, he applied to join the Ghana Armed Forces. He was sent to the Ghana Military Academy Teshie, as an air force cadet.
To this date, there is still argument as to why he was accepted as suitable material for training as an Air Force Officer, because his academic grades were not good and his character, so far as can be gauged from his days in Achimota, was such that he should have been rejected outright at the selection Board.
He had two factors working in his favour. The first was that he had the backing of certain very senior officers at the Ghana Air Force Headquarters. Secondly, he managed to so charm members of the selection board that even though he was a borderline case, he was selected as a potential Air Force Officer.
He was known as Jerry John in school. The name we now associate with the man was changed when he appeared before the selection Board. There are two stories about this change. The first was that when he appeared before the selection board, the panel thought that the surname "John" was unusual and prevailed upon him to use Rawlings instead. The second was that he thought that Rawlings as a surname was to be preferred. Whatever be the case, what was to become a household name, J.J.Rawlings, was entered on the official military records after the deliberations of the selection board.
He was a rather average officer cadet. The only thing noteworthy about him was his interest in sports. After six months training in the Ghana Military Academy, he was sent to the Flying Training School of the Ghana Air Force, in Takoradi, in the Western Region of Ghana. In Takoradi he kept very much to himself but was known as a moody and strange individual.
He obtained his wings after the pre requisite training and was commissioned as a pilot officer in the Ghana Air Force. After his post-commission training, Rawlings was posted to the Air Force station, Accra where he was to remain for the rest of his normal service career.
There is a story about his days at the Flying Training School. Apparently he felt that he was good enough to be selected as the best flying cadet at the end of the course but when the late squadron leader Victor Bannerman was chosen, Rawlings did not like the idea and made his view known. He never forgave the Air Force and Victor Bannerman. It explains his antipathy to Bannerman who became the object of his hostility thereafter.
From the time of his arrival in Accra till he became chairman of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council in June 1979, Rawlings served in the No.4 (Jet) Squadron of the Ghana Air Force. He was regarded as a competent pilot but not the ace pilot he had been made out to be. His daredevil approach to flying even persuaded his squadron leader, K.Asihene, to think seriously about recommending that he be grounded. Rawlings' flying exploits are really an invention by his image builders. He was good with the pistol and represented the Air Force at Armed Forces shooting competitions.
His participation in Armed Forces sporting events enabled him to cultivate the friendship of other ranks. There was this strange thing about him in the seventies, in the years before he achieved national fame or notoriety, that he seemed more at home in the company of other ranks than officers. This is not to say that he did not have officers among his friends. He did, among these were Majors Boakye Djan and Abraham Rida. No one knew why he seemed to prefer the company of other ranks but from hindsight, it would seem as if he was gathering them around for his own purposes.
He did not cut a popular figure in the Air Force Officers Mess where he was known as a loner who spent much of his spare time playing fruit machines. He used to gamble his whole month's salary on these machines. It is not surprising that for much of his life before he became chairman of the AFRC, he was always in financial difficulties and had to be regularly bailed out by friends in and out of the Armed Forces. He also tried to make ends meet by selling artworks (his wife is a good artist) and consumer goods on the side.
Togbui Kodzo, as Rawlings also called himself, was, by 1973, an enigma to his officer colleagues. The man who sought the company of other ranks, always seemed to prefer half- castes and whites as social companions. He was rarely seen with anybody who was black. Many of his officer colleagues thought him stand-offish and racist. He did not disappoint them in this view. His attitude is said to have undergone a radical change when the parents of the Swiss girl he sought to marry, rejected his suit. Then he became more black than the blacks whose company he had shunned earlier.
A very serious attempt has been made after 1981 to build up an image of Rawlings as a paragon of virtue - a highly moral, albeit idealistic leader whose only passion in life is service to Ghana and without any of the corruptible habits of the politicians he overthrew. If you believe this, you will believe anything. Rawlings is nothing like that; he loves his women, wine and song. He is interested in what he can do for himself and if this coincides with Ghana's needs, then all the more easy to pretend as if he loves Ghana dearly.
He has developed pretence to a new art form, to the extent that, unless you know him very well, it is difficult to separate the private Rawlings from the public figure on whom so many paeans of praise had been heaped by impressed African correspondents of overseas journals. The consummate actor Up till 1974, Rawlings was not thought of as an officer with any political ambitions. He gave an impression as a young officer only interested in flying. But then he could be all things to all men. Certainly it was after this year that officer colleagues started noting that he was developing an interest in politics. His views were naive but he made them known in such dramatic form that he began to attract notice as someone who was opposed to the Acheampong regime. He came up with several madcap schemes to end the life of the regime. One of the more notable ones was a plan by him to arm a jet aircraft and attack General Acheampong in his official residence. Fortunately, his political mentors who were by 1978 teleguiding his activities persuaded him out of this scheme.
By the time Acheampong was removed from office in July 1978, he saw himself as one of those who could be counted on to help solve the problems of the country. Between 1976 and 1979 he had come under the influence of civilians with distinctive political ideas. They filled his head with ideas that were noteworthy for their naivety, and by this time he was trying to read Franz Fanon whose "Wretched of the Earth '' he carried around for a whole year. They must have seen him as one of those officers who could end military rule and behind whom they could hide to achieve their own political ambitions
There was also the group of young officers with whom he was beginning to associate and who felt like he did that Acheampong must go to redeem the image of the Armed Forces. Before July 1978, he saw General Akuffo as the one man who could be depended upon to remove Acheampong and he therefore struck a friendship with the general, often visiting the general in his house.
When he became chairman of the AFRC in June 1979, this fact was one of the things he made frantic efforts to hide. When Akuffo replaced Acheam pong, Rawlings expected to be part of the power structure and to be close to the general. When this did not happen, he became aggrieved and sought ways and means of wreaking his revenge. Those with an intimate knowledge of the period have said that Rawlings undertook his 15th May action because he felt he had been personally let down by General Akuffo.
It is interesting to note that Rawlings' growing interest in politics between 1976 and 1979 occurred at a time when he was becoming increasingly frustrated at his lack of success in his promotion examinations for the rank of a Flight Lieutenant. He had failed this on no less than seven occasions. In his eighth attempt, he had to resit his current affairs paper in which he had been referred. That he was able to pass this, was due more to the efforts of Air Vice Marshal G.Y.Boakye (deceased) who felt that he could not be failed. There was every chance that given his failure rate, he would be asked to resign his commission. The Air Vice Marshal decided that he should be given the benefit of the doubt and given the pass mark. It was because of this that he became a Flight Lieutenant - just in time to lead his 4 June revolution.
On the eve of 4 June 1979, Rawlings was a thoroughly disillusioned and aggrieved young officer. That his grievances could be explained by his increasing financial problems was beyond doubt, but personally he saw his personal problems as the result of the inefficiency of the military regime. The fact that his net pay was meagre less than C100 a month was in his perception due to the Armed Forces rather than the fact that, as a result of personally spending his foreign exchange allocation for a course in Pakistan which was cancelled at the last minute, he had to cough up the amount. Note how he used to paint a picture that the Armed Forces did not pay him well. That this problem with pay was of his own making was quietly forgotten. It is typical of the man that he can tell a lie with the straightest of faces. No lie is beyond him when he is trying to justify himself.
When he became chairman of the AFRC on 4 June 1979, his latent talent for dramatics found a perfect platform. That the uprising would create problems for Ghana did not matter to him as much as it gave him an opportunity to test his mish-mash ideas on Ghanaians. When he struck a responsive chord, he thought that his time as a leader had come.
As a leader, he is a poor specimen. He is wedded to the same set ideas about corruption, morality and accountability. Whether he appreciates the implication of these, does not matter so much as for the fact that he is saying them. Remove them from his vocabulary, and he is completely bereft of ideas. He finds the minutiae of administration boring. He prefers to be out talking to crowds rather than sit down to think and reflect. As someone said, he has the attention span of a twelve-year-old. His metier lies in play acting and conveying an impression of a man who is larger than life. He has no deeply-held beliefs, for him these are means to an end and not the basis of a programme, leading some to suggest that he seized power to indulge his wish for adventure and his thirst for power.
One effect on him after three months as chairman of the AFRC was to whet his appetite for power. As someone who loves power, the period he spent in the political wilderness was to create for him severe withdrawal symptoms, so that by the middle of 1980 he was seriously plotting to overthrow the very government he had handed over to.
Rawlings is very ruthless. He has been known to order his enemies to death without flinching an eye and yet he could also display emotion. This has led to a suggestion that he has a double personality, a Jekyll and Hyde character, each side struggling to gain dominance in him. As baffling as he is dangerous, Rawlings has refined a tactic of staying out of trouble even if this is the result of his actions.
He does not forgive easily and has a long memory. You do not escape his wrath if you have crossed swords with him in the past.
When he is in a weak position, he will compromise and agree to any demand. But count on him to reject the agreements when his position is improved.
He does not trust anybody. He is incapable of forming long lasting friendships. Anyone who thinks otherwise always lives to regret. Rawlings is attached to any one who will help him achieve his desires. Then after that, the person will be discarded.
He has a tendency to deal with any one he thinks knows too much about his past. In his drive to portray himself as incorruptible itself and the arbiter of the ultimate truth, woe betide anyone he thinks knows him otherwise. The action against black market traders in Cowlane in Accra in 1982, for example, was due to his need to remove all those on the black market in Cowlane who knew that he used to be one of the regular buyers and sellers of foreign currency and not because he thought currency trafficking was bad.
He is in constant fear of himself and those he perceives as a potential challenge to his authority. If I were those who feel that they are powerful in the PNDC, I would tread carefully, because Rawlings is capable of destroying them at a moment's notice. With him, there can be no alternative.
Rawlings has a predilection for the occult. He consults the fetish regularly to strengthen his belief in his powers but also to enable him confirm his cronies and acolytes' view of him as supernatural. When he has a problem or is under severe pressure, he is wont to consult the fetish at Abor or Dahomey. He never undertakes any enterprise without consulting his special corps of fetish priestesses in Abor in the Volta Region. He is married with three daughters. This then is the man behind the mask.
