A Rejoinder: Mills is bad news for Ghana

In an incipient democracy like ours in Ghana it is becoming a patent mishap that people without any iota of scruples fail to distinguish between lying and pyromania on one hand, and objective politicking on the other. So they will stubbornly stomp all about the place, out of malice, to justify the unjustifiable, and when they gape malignantly it is with the urge to hurt, and to hurt profoundly without a twinge of consideration for principles and societal values. This is too bad and would never lead us anywhere. Sometimes, passing moments alone, you wonder why certain things which happen in life do happen, and at the end of the day you figure it out that most of it is born out of jealousy and selfishness. But does it credit humankind with the intelligence and values it is supposed to have? I have said it before and still maintain that people have mean streak in them, and unless we create a barrier that filters this tendency we are going headlong into a precipice.

The insipid and highly seasoned article ?Mills is bad news for Ghana? by a Philip Bannor of NPP ? USA and posted here on Thursday 3, 2008 simply smacks of feeble-mindedness and pride. The article sounds more like a drivel than the vitriolic momentum he intended giving it on account of the whacking great lies it contains. While wishing the good professor Mills were dead to suit his ill-will and selfish political fantasies like others before him in quite similar stupidly monotonous sermons, he went after Captain Kojo Tsikata in a falsehood having nothing to do with the injurious title, and in so doing obfuscate the real objectives of his whimsically childish brain behind his intention to write at all.

In political or even electoral propaganda is it not wiser to toot the eulogies of one?s political pet instead of libelous statements and vituperative campaigns to discredit others, even those having nothing to do with the political drama going on? Philip Bannor is not only a staunch liar and hypocrite like the ones he tries to acclaim but also one of those stooges and day-dreamers whose involvement in Ghana politics will always be a scare on the minds of good-faith fellow Ghanaians.

Talking on Captain Tsikata I would say it is very unfortunate. In fact, it is not uncommon one time or the other to see hot discussions on the issue on the Ghanaweb and the more it is debated on the more it becomes tympanum-breaking. Was the Editor of the Daily Graphic crazy when on August 22nd 1983 he carried a reportage on the Amartey Kwei?s confession as he apologized to Captain Tsikata for the falsehood he peddled at all costs, when weird major events at those particular times could have changed the settings of the day and hand him freedom on the platter by hanging others? Did the editor say he was wheedled in that reportage by anybody? Didn?t Amartey Kwei?s GIHOC colleagues denounce his motives behind the abductions and murder? Didn?t Amedeka retort very angrily by asking why Captain Tsikata?s name was being pushed on him during cross-examination by the Special Investigating Board and pinpoint the official who tried to push him into falsehood? Amedeka had nothing to loose that day and would have confessed were it they way the SIB investigating team wanted it, but he stood his grounds by refusing to condone in the endeavors to hang an innocent man.

Philip Bannor is a so good liar that he even booked four judges murdered instead of three! Suffice it to say, if you were a man in a fight, you?d better stand on your two feet and fight like a man; dirty tricks undermine the exigencies required of a real man.

People have talked about this painful moment in the past, and underneath the desire by some of us to carry the fight through our rebuttals is the quest to tell the truth as we knew it, so long as there are imbeciles out there still willing cling on to dirty bones in desperate bid to tarnish the image of innocent individuals. Now, if you had never seen a spy film before, the maze of mind-boggling scenario that reeled on in the wake of the heinous crimes had a sinister setting resembling it, but for the detailed fact that the actors involved in the series of malicious enterprise to implicate Tsikata (Rawlings would be implicated later on) were the dumbest Ghanaians ever in the country?s tasteless history.

Before I continue let me explain in a nutshell to Mr. Bannor what a liar is. A lie is a statement of the untruth. It means saying or writing what is, by intent, falsehood. There are four ways of doing this; - Simply stating what is not true - Denying what is true - Ascertaining the certainty of what is doubtful - Ascertaining as doubtful what is certain What all these mean is that when a lie is told the one who tells the lie has the prime intention to say the untruth and derives some kind of satisfaction doing so. Telling a lie contradicts one?s subjective judgment; one thinks one thing and says the other, sometimes with the initial and final intention to damage the neighbor. Philip Bannor has just subscribed himself to the four ways of telling lies. Now, saying there were four high court judges instead of three means two things; either Mr. Bannor didn?t know the facts of the case and yet stubbornly refused to get himself informed, or that he is willfully malevolent or both.

Much as we shall always regret and bow our heads in total disgrace for the brutal murder of the three High Court Judges and the retired major out of vindictive and blind fury we shall never allow any deviant and slimy fellows to drag in dirty soil the name of innocent and respectable citizens. This is untenable. If Philip Bannor is not listening then someone should please give him a jolt or a pinch in the flank and wake him up from sleep so he could listen, and listen proper in order not to go muck around trespassing on fields he obviously knows nothing about. A wiser man would put up defense to mitigate the impact created by the recent catchy blurb on his presidential aspirant provoked by Kofi Wayo instead of wasting time hitting on such trivial issues as bordering on health. If at the end he still fails to make any logical deduction from the intrigue invented through the array of strange events in the wake of those brutal assassinations then he should be ashamed for being victim of his own little junior mind.

The victims were assassinated on the night of June 30, 1982. Amartey Kwei, the mastermind was arrested with others four months later on the 8th November 1982, thoroughly investigated and executed in 1983. However there was a seemingly clumsy sequence of events clouding those fateful days and tensions were so palpable. In Amartey Kwei?s deposition of 23rd November 1982 that turned out sooner to have been a nefarious behind-the-scene political manipulation he implicated in sang-froid Captain Kojo for the first time. This incredible turn-out beat the imagination of many and caused serious agitations for, Amartey Kwei gave his first deposition a week earlier on the 15th November 1982 during which he said nothing whatsoever concerning Captain Kojo Tsikata. Would you say he had forgotten when he had nothing to loose as the mastermind of a serious crime? Because, in the absence of anything foreseeable of consequence that may cause any artificial intervention he was billed for the firing squad and no amount of witchery or prayers, reason or caprice could have prevented that. But it was the SIB which passed the news that Kwei intended giving voluntarily a fresh deposition, which was taken on that November 23 by ASP Oduro and Chief Superintendent Yidana. Mysteriously as it stood that day, there was a very serious military coup being staged against the PNDC at the very moment the ?confession? was being extorted from tension-filled Amartey Kwei. And it was found later on that those two from the SIB to whom Kwei made the confessions were implicated in the coup! So how, in this diabolical world, would one be coerced to take the confession credible? It is therefore easy to understand that Kwei?s tangent to his first deposition was a perfect timing to an ulterior motive or anticipation, most probably awaiting favorable outcomes promised by players in the foxy scheme.

Brigadier Nunoo-Mensah was said to have given testimony as regards the involvement of Captain Kojo Tsikata but how much did he know? Was he really privy to insider information or was he part of the mystery? The Brigadier was until the 22nd November 1982 a member of the PNDC and Chief of Defense Staff. Then he resigned as though he were provoked by a sting of a bee. It must be remembered that Brigadier Nunoo-Mensah tendered his resignation on the eve of an important interview and a gigantic coup d??tat, giving as reason the fact that people in responsible positions were involved in the murder of the judges and the retired major. In his submission to the SIB later on he capitalized on this issue: ?In my letter of resignation on the 22nd November 1982, I mentioned that among the reasons that compelled me to leave the Government was the indication that certain important political personalities might be implicated in this sordid act. My reason for saying this was based on Amartey Kwei?s confession statement in which he had admitted complicity and also indicated that Captain Tsikata masterminded the operation. I had no evidence outside this.? I wonder if Mr. Bannor and his clique of doubting Thomases are following the case up to now. If he cannot infer it out let me make it easy for him: Amartey Kwei made his final deposition a day later than the intelligent Brigadier banged the door on his PNDC responsibilities and active duty and yet referred to the deposition that would come a day later as his point of reference! This makes the Brigadier either a prophet to whom the Almighty God revealed what was to have happened the next day, or rather a hideous and loopy personality hinted by the very people who coerced Amartey Kwei into making the second testimony by pretending he forgot what he should have said on the 15th November 1982. That?s very realistic, one would say? What a world so fantastic! Now, taking for granted therefore, that the two who examined Kwei were involved in the coup that occurred on the 23rd November during the cross-examination, how then would one not see the reach and extent of this devilish plot?

I can continue and recount a lot more intriguing circumstances that underlie this sorry case, but I put it to Philip Bannor to find out more himself. However, the question one turns in his mind is, if you were the leader of a military coup and a member of a military junta like the PNDC with all the power that you have, would you assassinate your enemies secretly, burn them and throw them somewhere for people to discover later on? That would have brought their IQ below zero. The judges were the enemies of no one, NOT even enemies of Flight Lieutenant Rawlings or Captain Tsikata; they were not enemies of the PNDC, so one fails to see where the motives would have come from for Captain Kojo Tsikata to have been a mastermind of those murders.

Let me remind Mr. Bannor that Kojo Tsikata does not know me and I am not Ewe so should have a clear mind. If Bannor were in the same situation I would not accept seeing his name tarnished.

Bannor went on to say things reminiscent of people avid for power. ?Nana has a vision to take Ghana to the next level, taking the lead in Africa to reach middle income status, free from political repressions as was witnessed in both Rawlings', and Nkrumah's regimes; the former with unexplained torture and killings, the latter with political detentions,? he asserted. This is more childish than hypocritical. The well-being of a state is not depended on unilateral decisions of the President alone, reason for which ministers are designated to assist the President in his numerous daily tasks. So why should Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo wait to be President before implementing his spectacular ideals on African income status? Should we call that selfishness; a paradigm of African politics, ?Fail so I will become the next President??

Mr. Bannor may have been a UFO; nay a UFG! - an Unidentified Flying Ghanaian who may have been hibernating on such far away planet as Pluto, as he seems not to have been aware of torture and Killings during the NPP regime. He should ask Hackman Agyeman?s house maid. But how about Ya Naa?s Murder and the Gbewaa palace massacre? Hackman saw the video of the shoot-out and confirmed having seen it. He later tried to rectify the resonance of that confirmation when people raised eyebrows but that was too late; it echoed louder and clearer and we have long ears and big eyes, so we heard and saw. Even certain people involved in the brutal murder reportedly displayed parts of the dead body of the Ya Naa in the glaring view of people who were the keepers of the law. The Gbewaa carnage alone is already too big to go on enumerating others.

That Professor Mills has health problems and therefore cannot be the next problem is not the decision of Philip Bannor to make, which is why the electorate is there. But if he makes this his personal preoccupation then he has a really big problem. If Bannor hasn?t health problems, he should be grateful to the Good God and also pray to God never to be ill. I know everybody gets ill so health problems should not be a subject or reference point for contempt. Some of us good-thinking Ghanaians will ever be grateful to Captain Kojo Tsikata and all those straight-thinking Ghanaian politicians of the past for their invaluable contribution to the democracy and the peaceful country they have toiled to create for us today. Politics is not about division, it is about an on-going fight to converge different ideas for a good political end; we have the same set of aspirations. That would make our country a better peaceful haven to live in. That is what is worth mulling over.

Jordys A. Komfuor.

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.