The Managing of the Ghanaian Observer newspaper, Mr Egbert Faibille has said former president Jerry Rawlings needs to be reminded that times have changed and Ghana has moved away from 1979 and 1981. He said Rawlings’ prescriptions of how to solve the country’s problems especially relating to prosecuting perceived wrong doers are not only outdated but vastly incomprehensible. Mr Faibille was contributing to a discussion on Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile, Saturday on the former president’s complaint that “The reluctance of the government to institute credible and transparent investigations into the fraud and political killings, which were the benchmark of the Kufuor regime, is leading to a sense of hopelessness, indifference and indiscipline.” “Do I have a problem with President Mills? Yes I do - His refusal to pursue the moral mandate of the people - to reinstate truth, transparency and most of all justice into the fabric and psyche of the nation. This is leading to the institutionalisation of crime and corruption. Justice will be deformed,” the former president said in a statement issues in Accra last week. But Mr Faibille maintained “Mr Rawlings is talking about people should be tried…, tried on what? Moral grounds? No! People are tried according to law.” He said unlike Mr Rawlings, who for most part of his reign ruled without a constitution and could afford to take decisions based on his own set moral standards, president JEA Mills has a legal mandate. “If president Mills or the government is prosecuting anybody, they do not file a charge sheet because of morality, they file it because of law.” The legal practitioner said morals are important in every society, “but because people’s morals differ, that is why the morals we think are important and common to humanity we codify them into laws so that they become uniform and we go by it.” “Mr Rawlings should know that the administration of president Mills is not [born] of a coup…this is a government that was elected, this is a government that I believe guides itself by the laws of the republic [and therefore cannot arbitrarily throw people into jail],” he stated. Mr Faibille observed that the former president’s belief that he is the best and strongest leader Ghana has had was fallacious. He accused Mr Rawlings of rejecting a constitutional proposal to make all former presidents members of the Council of State because he (Rawlings) didn’t want former president Hilla Limann who was alive then to have to advise him. The same Rawlings, Egbert contended, cannot expect to be given the unfettered opportunity to advise president Mills and make it appear as if the president is obliged to accept his views. Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Ghana