Former President Jerry Rawlings has hit out at the intellectuals in the party he founded–the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
He described them as a disappointment during his speech at the 41st anniversary of the June 4 uprising suggesting they had not done enough to shape Ghana’s historical narrative.
Mr. Rawlings, for example, suggested that his time as a military leader was not divorced from democracy despite general assertions of human rights abuses during his junta.
“We entered Constitutional rule in ’92 but democracy started well before then. It [the revolution] was one of the finest times in our history. We need to talk about this a lot more.”
Because of what he believes to be a miscasting of history, he then said: “some of the intellectuals in our party [the NDC] have been a real let down.”
“They open their mouths and I don’t hear much coming out of their mouths,” he added, stressing that they need to “boldly draw” a more accurate picture of Ghana under the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) which ruled Ghana following the second successful Rawlings-led military coup d’état on December 31, 1981.
Taking a jab at socialists, he remarked that “not even the so-called socialist here have ever bothered to school, educate Ghanaians in their socialist beliefs.”
The June 4 uprising was the first successful coup, Mr. Rawlings, then a Flight Lieutenant was associated with.
On June 4, 1979, members of the military, made up of mostly junior officers, overthrew General Fred Akuffo and Rawlings took the reigns of the country as the Chairman of a 15-member Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).
They have largely claimed their actions were fueled by public discontent, state corruption among others.
The council oversaw a ‘housecleaning’ exercise for three months after which elections for Ghana’s Third Republic were held and the government handed over to Hilla Liman’s People’s National Party.