"Rawlings Is A Walking Contradiction And Epitomizes Indiscipline" - Kweku Baako

The Editor in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Malik Kweku Baako, today descended heavily on former President Rawlings and flayed him by describing him as a �licensed irritant� and a �walking contradiction� and should be ignored. The former President, at a reception held at his Ridge Residence yesterday for some NDC apparatchiki�s, launched a scathing on President John Evan Atta Mills, accusing him of presiding over growing �indiscipline� in his government. Mr. Rawlings minced no words in hitting hard at Presidential Staffer and NDC National Youth Organiser, Ludwig Hlodze, accusing him of driving around at night with a motorcade led by dispatch riders. He described Ludwig�s actions as �foolish� and �nonsense�. President Mills was also not spared his verbal diatribe who, the former President warned to put �his foot down to make sure the nonsense going on around him is brought to a halt� or else he �will go down with the indisciplined people around him.� But contributing to panel discussion on Peace FM�s �Kokrokoo� morning show on Wednesday, February 10, Mr. Baako, posited that Mr. Rawlings had no moral right to attack President Mills, since he himself did worse things when he was in power. Citing several instances to buttress his statement, including the assault on his own Vice-President, Kow Nkensen Ackaah, at a cabinet meeting late 1995, Mr. Baako opined that Mr. Rawlings �epitomizes indiscipline himself.� �...he is hypocrisy personified...This is a man who whipped his Vice President at a cabinet meeting�That was the highest order of indiscipline in the body politic of this country�.He gave him a blow, punch to the canvass�I have all the six different versions but all meant one thing, it was an assault,� he stated. Mr. Baako also cited the overturning of a taxi into a gutter by the body guards of Mr. Rawlings after the taxi driver allegedly crossed the presidential convoy, as an example. �You remember he, himself, as our sitting Head of State then, when a taxi driver crossed him somewhere in Osu, he stood and watched his bodyguards as they overturned the taxi into a gutter - that�s indiscipline for you... �Even if the taxi driver erred,� Mr. Baako insisted, the then �president ought to have referred the matter to the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) for the appropriate action to be taken rather than engage in what he did,� he said. He also recounted another incident where the Rawlingses ordered their bodyguards to use broken bottles to shave the head of one Selassie Jantu, said to be the boyfriend of their daughter. According to the self-confessed Rawlings critic, the then first lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, instead of condemning the act, glorified it, and christened it as an identification hair cut. �When his bodyguards detained his daughter�s boyfriend in the castle and shaved him with broken bottles, his wife came out to say that it was a mere identification hair cut...what did he do to his bodyguards? Eventually they jailed Mr. and Mrs. Jantu and sent them to court,� he added. The New Crusading Guide Editor-in-Chief added that even if Ludwig abused in the use of the motorcade as alleged by the former President, he has no moral justification to pontificate to Ghanaians or to the president on issues about discipline. ��..he Rawlings used the state aircraft to train his own daughter how to fly a plane�The NDC is a living lie. They have been living a lie all their lives. And Rawlings is at the height of that. So you must as well live with it. I rest my case,� he said.