Malik Baako: Rawlings is a licensed irritant

Kwaku Baako Email Print Have Your Say ( 38 ) Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper Malik Kweku Baako has described ex-president Rawlings as a “licensed irritant” who together with his party are “living a lie”. The ex-president had at a get together after the party’s first National Executive Committee meeting yesterday accused the sitting president, John Mills of doing little to check gross indiscipline by some government appointees. He is quoted to have said: "The people he surrounded himself with, most of them have worked with me before. That’s when I said who born dog. In my time, none of them would dare do the foolish things (they are doing) around him. I’m disciplined and I know Prof is a disciplined man, but why is he not putting his foot down to make sure the nonsense going on around him is brought to a halt? Subjecting Rawlings’ accusations to scrutiny on Wednesday’s edition of Peace FM’s morning show programme, Kokrokoo, Malik Kweku Baako said Mr Rawlings has no moral justification to pontificate to Ghanaians or to the president issues about discipline because his reign as president was pregnant with high levels of indiscipline. Describing Mr Rawlings as a “walking contradiction”, “hypocrisy personified” and a “licensed irritant” Mr Baako chronicled a plethora of issues to support his claims. According to him, Mr Rawlings as president exhibited the highest point of indiscipline when he assaulted his own vice president Kow Nkensen Ackaah at a cabinet meeting late 1995. The president again ordered his body guards to overturn a taxi into a gutter after the taxi driver allegedly crossed the presidential convoy. Even if the taxi driver erred, Mr Baako insisted the then president ought to have referred the matter to the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) for the appropriate action to be taken rather than engage in what he did, he said. In yet another example, Malik Baako said the Rawlingses ordered their bodyguards to use broken bottles to shave the head of a man- Selassie Gyantu, said to be the boyfriend of their daughter and kept him in the castle prison. Mr Baako noted that the then first lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings instead of condemning the act, glorified it, and christened it as an identification hair cut. Mr Rawlings in his outburst accused the youth organiser of the NDC Ludwik Hlordze of abusing the use of the motorcade. Referring to him as a “twitch” Mr Rawlings said Hlordze had no business using the motorcade. Even though Mr Baako conceded that the ex-president may have a point in criticizing the youth organiser, if it is true he abused the use of the motorcade, he said the procedures he adopted in addressing his concerns were unacceptable. In any case, he Rawlings, Mr Baako said, used the state aircraft to train his own daughter how to fly a plane, and "he was right in doing that", he said sarcastically. “The NDC is a living lie. They have been living a lie all their lives. And Rawlings is at the height of that. So you must as well live with it. I rest my case,” he said Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana