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ON ANY ordinary day, Otuam, nestling on the coast of the Mfantseman District of the Central Region, is a quiet fishing town. The town comes alive mainly when the many fishing canoes return from their expeditions with their bumper catch. Unfortunately, that has not happened much throughout the year. It is one of the ironies of our nationhood that at the time one of its own sons in the person Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills occupies the old Slave Castle as constitutional Head of State of this republic, the fishing industry has taken a serious knock to its fortunes. Lack of pre-mix fuel means that many of the hands at the sandy beaches of this ancient town, known in the olden days for its tendency to be ready for war at all times, are idle. It tells much about the competence of the team put together by the Head of State that the sight of a vessel with crude oil preparing to dock is headline news. It also gives an indication of where we are moving to as a nation such that most industries, including fishing, have no oil to move their wheels. In Otuam especially, what this means is that there is more time on the hands of the otherwise busy fisher-folks to indulge in their past-time which is why the Asafo drums are kept busy. Trust the people to be battle ready for any venture they find themselves in. In the traditional area and wherever citizens of the town find themselves, they are greeted with the accolade: EKUMFI ANKO A� to which they proudly respond: NA NYE OTUAM A! (If Ekumfi does not move, it certainly would not be Otuam.) I guess it is the town�s readiness for war in the ancient days that aided the development of Asafo as the rallying point. For Otuam certainly is one of the nation�s centres for the finest rendition of Asafo drumming and dancing. The reputation of Otuam Asafo is legendary. It is chronicled internationally at the museum in the city of Bristol in Her majesty�s Great Britain, which has among various artifacts it harbours, a mile long Asafo flag from Otuam. On a good day, when Otuam digs into its repertoire of Asafo, the agility of the dancers and the ability of singers to improvise take your breath away. One of the most famous lyrics popularized by Otuam Asafo drummers and singers is about the Chichidodoo bird. I have never caught sight of the bird but its reputation in Asafo folklore is well preserved. �Okyir Bin Na Odzi Nsambaa Ei: Chichidodoo�: The lyrics say that even though the Chichidodoo bird dislikes the very sight of feaces, it feeds on maggots. I would like to submit here that the outbursts and the very lifestyle of Jerry John Rawlings make me tilt towards the inclination that the former junta head is the very embodiment of the characteristics of the Chichidoodoo bird. The former Head of State goes about accusing everybody but himself of corruption. Evidence on the ground meanwhile suggests that he is the beneficiary of the most corrupt practices ever known in this land of our birth. On Monday October 26 2009, state-run Daily Graphic published a news item that bore the hallmark of the return of planted articles from the Castle like those days when Jerry John Rawlings was the landlord. Under the caption: �Rawlings blames development partners for corruption in Africa�, the news item suggested that the former junta head used a platform granted him in Germany to go on his usual tirade of insults and insinuations against former President John Agyekum Kufuor. The office of the immediate past President has responded in a language that bore the gentle nature of the ex-Head of State. I am afraid Jerry John Rawlings deserves to be treated in a more assertive manner than the kid gloves being applied, which is why I will have to disappoint readers who were promised last week to look out for a piece on why the NDC came to be credited with a win at the last Presidential and Legislative elections. If there is a single person as corrupt as Jerry John Rawlings in Ghana, that person is not yet born. Here is a Head of State that educated all his four children abroad and cited imaginary friends as the source of finance. Jerry Rawlings took delivery of four different four wheel vehicles in a day and paid the duty running into hundreds of millions. When asked to name the source of his money, he openly told Ghanaians that he would not reveal the source even if his head were to be severed from the body. There was this allegation from Nigeria that Gwarzo, the security capo of military dictator Sanni Abacha, on whose grave the former the Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces wept like a baby, was dispatched to deliver $5m dollars of blood money to Jerry Rawlings at the Castle. Those were the times when Abacha was a pariah in the international community. Incidentally, Jerry Rawlings was going about declaring that Abacha was a man of integrity. When agitation for investigation into the matter was playing out in Parliament and the court of public opinion, Jerry Rawlings decided to be mute. A leader without blemish would have welcomed the inquisition to establish his innocence. Under Jerry Rawlings, corruption was given an official seal. When Osei-Owusu, Ibrahim Adam and co. were hauled before the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice and found guilty, the government issued a White Paper rubbishing the verdict and rather castigated the whistle blowers. That was how Jerry Rawlings fought corruption; no wonder sleaze was part and parcel of his administration. The Quality Grain scandal and the Mabey and Johnson Bribery scam were all recorded at the time the apostle of probity and accountability took charge of Government House. Many Ghanaians do not know this, but one of the clauses in the decree promulgated to slaughter Kutu Acheampong and seven top military officers in June 1979 identified the promise of a gift as a crime punishable by death. In effect, if anybody had approached Kutu or any of his colleagues on the Supreme Military Council at the time and promised to deliver a parcel, the potential receiver, not the one making the promise, was guilty and liable to summary execution. Anybody who followed the proceedings in the People�s Court set up to try various offences identified by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council of Jerry John Rawlings would wish the former Head of State shut his mouth about the justice system in the country. Justice under Rawlings was when the Head of State himself was overturning taxi cabs. It also translated into civilians being arrested and kept in guardrooms at the old Slave Castle. When it was lunch-time, soup was poured on the ground for the suspects to lick. As a Ghanaian, I feel sorry for the education sector especially. This nation borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to reform education in the 1980s. After covering up their misdeeds with the JSS (I refer to it as Jerry�s Stupid Schools), the ex-Head of State smuggled all his four children to be properly educated in foreign institutions. I recall meeting one official of the World Bank who hailed from Trinidad and Tobago at a conference at Abuja, capital city of Nigeria in 1997. He wanted to know why Ghanaians were not demanding to know the whereabouts of the huge money borrowed for the so-called education reform that only succeeded in deforming education. The stench from the so-called education reform under Rawlings could be more pervasive than the experience at Lavender Hill. That is why Jerry Rawlings should shut up and allow Ghanaians to deal with our lives. I shall return to this topic next week!