Jerry John Rawlings on new crusade
Ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, now deeply involved in the rekindled Dagbon controversy, is expected in Tamale today, a visit which is set to give a fresh impetus to the fractious subject.
With his mission far from clear, the man who reprimanded the Mills government for Tuesday’s ruling which secured freedom for the 15 persons tried for their suspected involvement in the murder of Ya Na Yakubu Andani II, is certainly set to pitch camp with the Andanis.
It is largely suspected that the ex-President, who is yet to make available his evidence of persons behind the murder of the Ya Na which he touted on many occasions in the media, would partake in the planned demonstration by aggrieved Andani youth scheduled to take place in Accra.
Political observers think that the ex-President and his spouse are taking full advantage of the agitations of the Andanis to prosecute their political agenda. The evidence of this lies in the queries the couple has directed at government’s handling of the prosecution of the case in the high court.
Mr. Rawlings, for instance, thinks that had his advice that fresh evidence be assembled by government before taking the case to court been heeded, things could have taken an opposite turn.
The high court ruling has taken an abrasive political dimension whose negative effect on the Mills political fortunes has seen the President host a meeting with representatives of the Andanis already.
The meeting itself came under attack from some Abudus who consider it selective and whose unproductiveness in achieving a resolution of the conflict which threatens national security, they say, is not far-fetched.
The ‘Northern Youth for Peace’ has already announced a mammoth demonstration for Monday 4th April, to protest the court ruling and an eventual presentation of a petition to the President at the Castle.
DAILY GUIDE has learnt that 15 busloads of protestors are expected to be conveyed from Dagbon to join their counterparts from Ashaiman, Agbogbloshie and other parts of southern
Ghana for the Accra demonstration.
Details of the demonstration were disclosed by Mohammed Sulemana, spokesperson for the Northern Youth for Peace during a press conference in Tamale.
“This peaceful demonstration and presentation of petitions will be our effort in waking up the nation’s conscience and the need for our institutions to represent that conscience,” Sulemana explained.
He bemoaned the fact that even after the murder of Ya Na Yakubu II and thirty of his elders, no single person had been apprehended.
“It remains a fact that Ya Na Yakubu Andani II was gruesomely murdered and decapitated and over thirty others of his retinue were murdered in cold blood and during broad daylight and as of now not a single person has been brought to book,” he said.
Fuming, he served notice that should they find no justice, they would handle affairs in their own way and when this happened, he stated nobody should blame them.
It would appear that President Mills’s attempt at dousing the fire stocked by the court ruling, when he hosted elders from the Andani Gate, has failed to yield results, given the fury still evidenced in the utterances of the youth.
Following the ruling, Tamale was virtually turned upside down as irate NDC sympathizers turned their anger on party offices and burnt them in an unprecedented rage.
They have given Mills a fortnight to have the ruling reversed or see a mass resignation from the NDC, given his campaign promise of arresting the killers of the late Overlord of Dagbon.
Government, in a quick reaction to the threat, has promised to appeal against the ruling.
With ex-President Rawlings and his spouse almost operating on the same wavelengths with the angry Andanis, Mills is certainly under enormous pressure to make good a seemingly difficult-to-fulfill promise.
The Dagbon issue has provided fodder for politicians as they try to undo each other for political advantage as evidenced from the trips to Tamale and many statements in the media in recent days.
By A.R. Gomda
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