Ghana’s Crusading Engineer, Mr. Robert Kwabena Woode, has suggested the use of financial incentives, specifically bribing military officers who own allegiance to Laurent Gbagbo to rebel against him, as an option in resolving the political impasse in the Ivory Coast.
According to him, since all options seem to have hit the rocks and most African leaders are uncomfortable with the prospect of war which looms large on the scene, bribing ones way through remains one of the best choices that should be explored.
Speaking on e-TV Breakfast TV Newspaper Review, Mr. Woode who is also Chairman of the Oil Pump Research Institute, recommended the use of monetary inducements to buy out the Army Generals around Laurent Gbagbo so that they revolt against him, pointing out that it is sometimes good to appeal to the material or physical side of people to achieve a harmonious way of life.
“It is fine to be idealistic but under certain conditions, you have to be realistic. Human beings are moral-spiritual, physical- material, and you need to bind these two forces sometimes. When Jesus Christ the great Messiah was on the cross and the physical thing was getting too much for him, he said ‘my God, my God, why have thou forsaken me’ because at that time, the material physical pressures had overwhelmed his moral- spiritual being,” he noted.
He added that Gbagbo’s Army Generals could be bought with huge sums of money that they could never earn, even if they work their socks off their entire life. According to him, ECOWAS has an upper hand to bribe Gbagbo’s generals since the embattled Ivorian leader is not in a position to counter that move.
“The African is very poor and there are about 35 or so Generals around Gbagbo, so if we decide to give each of them between 300 million to 500 million dollars, they will revolt. I mean we have to think and I’m very convinced that, none of the generals around Gbagbo will refuse 500 million dollars when they could possibly not afford it all their life; and it will be more costly if a direct war is used,” he suggested.
He continued: “Gbagbo does not have the financial capacity to offer a bigger or higher sum to his soldiers and it will be very difficult for him to raise that sum of money; but it will be easy for ECOWAS to raise that amount of money. In the whole lifetime, the generals cannot make such an amount,” he added.
The ‘Crusading Engineer’ believes that millions of dollars will be wasted and thousands of lives lost if ECOWAS decides to use force or go to war in order to oust Laurent Gbagbo.
Source: Beatrice Adepa Frempong