Audio By Carbonatix
Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. is asking whether Ghana today is better as far as corruption, probity and accountability are concerned relative to the period leading to the June 4 uprising.
The 1979 June 4 uprising, instigated by widespread corruption, saw some junior officers of the Ghana Army led by then Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings topple the then Supreme Military Council (SMC II) government and established the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).
The revolution espoused the ideals of probity, accountability and the elimination of corruption that was thought to have permeated every fabric of the governing system then, and indeed the rest of the society.
General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, General Akwasi Amankwaa Afrifa and General FWK Akuffo were three former heads of state who suffered death along with others during the uprising.
Currently, June 4 is celebrated yearly by remnants of AFRC who are influential members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). Its 32nd anniversary, scheduled for Saturday, will be marked in Accra and Kumasi.
But Kwesi Pratt, during a discussion on Peace FM's Kokrokoo programme Friday, argued that June 4 did not serve the country a very useful purpose because members of the AFRC government did not stick to the standards they set and that they were more corrupt than the people they put to death.
"…The AFRC was in power for three and half-months… associates of AFRC were themselves so damn corrupt that the AFRC itself had to arrest them and try them and jail them," Mr Pratt stated.
He added that other people were killed on the basis that they had borrowed monies from the bank to build houses, saying that "using the same standards, some of the architects of June 4 today… they should be lining them up and shooting them one after the other."
"Because they have done worse than Acheampong did, they have done worse than Amedome did, they have done worse than all those who were killed," the editor insisted.
Kwesi Pratt stated that despite the AFRC's inability to stick to the standards of probity and accountability, they again perpetuated terrible human rights violations against the citizenry.
He recalled, among others, a time when a middle-aged woman was stripped naked and beaten for selling gari above controlled price.
Was that the revolution? Was that the social justice? Stripping elderly women naked and whipping them in the streets, was that the revolution and justice? Mr Pratt quizzed.
"Today we can all justifiably say [that] it was wrong to have participated in those things … I think we should leave it to history," he said, advising Ghanaians to stick to democracy.
Story by Dorcas Efe Mensah/myjoyonline.com/Ghana
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