How we got Rawlings to stop the needless killings of public officials, others - Prof Ahwoi Narrates

Former Local Government Minister under the Jerry John Rawlings administration, Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi has given a thrilling account of how he and some advisers in the then government convinced the former President to put an end to the reckless execution of publoc officials.

According to Prof Ahwoi, he and some advisers threatened former President Rawlings to stop the 'killings' or risk losing them from his government.

Rawlings’ administration prior to the introduction of Democracy according to history saw a number of individuals being executed for crimes which were against the state’s progress.

These executions included Public officials, Court Justices and even civil servants whose crimes were sometimes unknown.

Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi in his controversial “working with Rawlings” book said  he and other advisers of the former President walked to him and threatened to leave if the executions are not stopped.

He said Jerry John Rawlings ‘sacked’ them from his office but that was the day executions ended in the country.

“I recount how a group of Rawlings’ closest advisers, including myself confronted him one early morning with a demand for him to “stop the executions” or risk our exit from his government. Though he did not give us any answer and literally “sacked” us from his office, he stopped signing death warrants that would have authorised the carrying out of the death sentences handed down by the public tribunals, thus effectively stopping the executions.”

Working with Rawlings authored by Professor Kwamena Ahwoi has become controversial due to revelations about some key members of the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC)/ National Democratic Congress(NDC), including former President Jerry John Rawlings himself, Dan Abodakpi, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and several others.

In a recent interview however, former President J.J Rawlings says the execution of the eight former head of states and senior army officers spared the country ethnic cleansing in the Ghana Armed Forces in the early days of the 1979 revolution. 

The country’s leader for 19 years insisted the eight senior military officers were used as sacrificial lambs to atone for the craving for blood, which would have taken the lives of more than 80 senior military officers, who were from a particular ethnic group.

“We did what we had to do, hoping and expecting that this was it. The two of them would have helped to assuage the rage. Approaching a week later, the temperature and pressure was building up again, which was equally understandable because a lot of officers were involved in that.

“Approaching one week, we had no choice but to start rounding up the others. Those generals were not slated to be executed. Some others, the true proper ones who should have paid that price, would run into 80 or more officers" he noted

Rawlings admitted that some of people killed were innocent and were victims of a “moral battle.”

“If it had gone the other way, we could have easily have lost control. You probably have heard me a few times talking about the innocent ones as well. That is the painful one that one has to live with as well, because some of them were good people and didn’t deserve to die. That was the only way we could prevent the thing from getting out of hand,” he explained.