{"id":230308,"date":"2016-07-12T16:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T16:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=230308"},"modified":"2016-07-12T16:00:45","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T16:00:45","slug":"rawlings-admission-of-abachas-2m-demontrates-honesty-adom-otchere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=230308","title":{"rendered":"Rawlings’ admission of Abacha’s $2m demonstrates ‘honesty’- Adom-Otchere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seasoned journalist, Paul Adom-Otchere, has said that former President, Jerry John Rawlings’ admission that he took only two million dollars while still in office from then president of Nigeria, Sani Abacha, as a demonstration \u00a0of his increasing commitment to honesty, and the well-being\u00a0of the country.<\/p>\n

While admitting that the revelation came as a shock to him he stated that\u00a0it was a sign of\u00a0the former president’s evolution as a person, since handing over power in 2001.<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”dlOWyUVj181bm2RD6j0GQZG8gnOu7dcW”]”It is completely shocking that Mr. Rawlings must have to admit this at this stage. It also helps us to understand the kind of personality that Rawlings has become. It helps us understand that after leaving office nearly sixteen years ago, Rawlings has changed and his instincts towards nation-building and towards truth and honesty and towards a great future for Ghana have completely increased,”\u00a0Paul Adom-Otchere said on Eyewitness News<\/strong> on Monday.<\/p>\n

“We are happy that he has admitted something like this to help us build and set the parameters for the future.”<\/p>\n

Ex\u00a0President Rawlings, in an interview with\u00a0the Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria,\u00a0admitted<\/strong><\/a><\/span> that he had received some amount of money from former Nigerian President Sani Abacha.<\/p>\n

He denied\u00a0claims that he had received $5 million from the former Nigerian head of state, stating the amount given to him was $3 million less.<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>
Paul Adom-Otchere<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However,\u00a0Paul Adom-Otchere, who covered the issue as a parliamentary correspondent when it came up in 2000, stated that, the fuss over the amount of money was largely irrelevant, and that the revelation should rather elicit a conversation on the conduct of heads of state.<\/p>\n

He said that the concept\u00a0of\u00a0giving among heads of state, was not unusual these days, and that it was difficult to determine whether this particular issue could be considered\u00a0unlawful.<\/p>\n

“The quantum of the money should not be the issue; the principle about whether a president can or can\u2019t do that is the issue. Within the context of international relations, diplomats will tell you that presidents do share gifts across the world. The American president does apparently, the UK Prime Minister does and when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was president, in support for his African Union position, he used to travel around the world and send a lot of money to Guinea and other places.”<\/p>\n

“Somehow in international relations, that has come to be a convention where heads of state share monies. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi shared a lot of money across the world and to heads of states in Africa towards the formation of the new African Union. It\u2019s difficult to tell whether it\u2019s a crime or not because within the international context, they do share gifts,” \u00a0the host of\u00a0Metro TV\u2019s Good Evening Ghana said.<\/p>\n

Rawlings backed Abacha<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul Adom-Otchere said that although Abacha was hugely unpopular with the international community which many criticising his style of governance, Rawlings was one of the few people who backed the Nigerian head of state.<\/p>\n

“Abacha was very bad in those days and most of the African Union leaders were worried about Abacha and would pass comments about him internationally. It was only Rawlings who seemed to give Abacha some credibility because he would explain on international platforms that the people had to understand the context of the Nigerian situation,” he said.<\/p>\n

Go and sin no more<\/strong><\/p>\n

Former Member of Parliament for New Juabeng North, Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, believes former President Jerry John Rawlings\u2019 admission that he accepted $2 million from former Nigerian Head of State, Sani Abacha, after nearly 18 years of denial, should warrant forgiveness<\/strong><\/span><\/a> from Ghanaians.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has confessed it and I think we should be magnanimous enough to say let bygones be bygones, but I think from him, we should learn lessons that the President should desist from taking gifts from persons or money and everything like that,\u201d he stated on Eyewitness News<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By: Edwin Kwakofi\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seasoned journalist, Paul Adom-Otchere, has said that former President, Jerry John Rawlings’ admission that he took only two million dollars while still in office from then president of Nigeria, Sani Abacha, as a demonstration \u00a0of his increasing commitment to honesty, and the well-being\u00a0of the country. While admitting that the revelation came as a shock to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=230308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=230308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=230308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=230308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}