{"id":232128,"date":"2016-07-18T19:25:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T19:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=232128"},"modified":"2016-07-18T19:25:40","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T19:25:40","slug":"we-didnt-know-about-abachas-2m-to-rawlings-ahwoi-ato-dadzie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/07\/we-didnt-know-about-abachas-2m-to-rawlings-ahwoi-ato-dadzie\/","title":{"rendered":"We didn’t know about Abacha’s $2m to Rawlings – Ahwoi, Ato Dadzie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two of Jerry John Rawlings’ closest aides during his time in office, Nana Ato Dadzie and Kwamena Ahwoi, say they did not know about his acceptance of some $2 million from the late Nigerian President, Sani Abacha, contrary to the ex-leader’s claim they knew about it.<\/p>\n

The duo have also expressed their displeasure about\u00a0assertions\u00a0attributed to Mr. Rawlings\u00a0about their alleged commentary of his receipt of the money from the late Nigerian\u00a0leader.<\/p>\n

Ex-president Rawlings admitted<\/a><\/strong><\/span> in an interview with Nigeria’s Guardian Newspaper that he had\u00a0received the money from Nigeria’s leader at the time, although he denied the amount was five million dollars as alleged initially.<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”yTXxg21yG1KUeJdIa65hdYplDmrhF4dk”]He also\u00a0suggested in the same interview that his two former appointees,\u00a0Nana Ato Dadzie and Kwamina Ahwoi,\u00a0also knew about the money, but instead chose to write about it when they fell out with him and got “poisonous”<\/p>\n

He is quoted as having said in the interview:<\/p>\n

“My colleagues knew about it I didn\u2019t know why I should be keeping these things secret.\u00a0Moreover, I didn\u2019t have any personal account to be putting these things into anyway.\u00a0Besides we needed to use them for some national needs.\u00a0But lo and behold. Many years down the line when I fell out with some of my colleagues\u00a0and they decided to get poisonous, two of them wrote a book on district assembly\u00a0elections and the decentralization programme, and inserted in somewhere when it was\u00a0absolutely not necessary, something about Gwarzo\u2019s supposed $5 million just to poison\u00a0my name I just felt sad that Gwarzo should do this\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nana Ato Dadzie, who served as a former Chief of Staff under the Rawlings regime and Kwamena Ahwoi, who served as Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, denied any knowledge about the money given to Rawlings by Abacha<\/p>\n

They also denied that\u00a0Professor Ahwoi had commented on the matter in his book , \u2018Local Government and Decentralization in Ghana\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"rawlings\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In a joint statement released on Monday July 18, the pair said: “We are not certain that this is a correct attribution to President Rawlings but if it is, then we\u00a0feel terribly upset about it because the facts are to the contrary.\u00a0First of all, we did not know about the payment of any such money.\u00a0Secondly, there is nothing in the book, \u2018Local Government and Decentralization in Ghana\u2019,\u00a0which was solely authored by Professor Kwamena Ahwoi, about any Gwarzo money”<\/p>\n

They however admitted that, they had jointly written a piece about \u00a0“an alleged\u00a0 Gwarzo money” \u00a0 in a book titled\u00a0\u201cJustice Daniel Francis Annan \u2013 In the\u00a0Service of Democracy’, an Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG) Publication published in
\n2010 by Sub-Saharan Publishers, P. O. Box 358, Legon-Accra.<\/p>\n

The extract from the book \u201cManaging a Robust Multiparty Parliament\u201d \u201cThe Gwarzo Affair\u201d, (pages 121-122)\u00a0reads:<\/p>\n

\u201cNigerian newspaper published an unsubstantiated story that President Rawlings had\u00a0received US$5 million from the Nigerian intelligence capo, Chief Gwarzo, in support of\u00a0his Presidential campaign for the 1996 elections. The NPP Parliamentary opposition\u00a0latched on to the story and insisted on forcing a debate on the issue. On the day that\u00a0the motion was to be moved, tensions were very high in the House. The NDC was aware\u00a0that there was nothing to the story and suspected that the NPP was also aware.\u00a0However, the NDC Parliamentary caucus was apprehensive that the NPP would use the\u00a0occasion to throw mud at President Rawlings and to embarrass the NDC and was\u00a0determined to prevent it at all costs. The NDC therefore marshaled all its big guns; and\u00a0virtually every NDC Minister of State, Cabinet and non-Cabinet, MPs and non-MPs and\u00a0Deputy Ministers, were present in the House. The party had plotted a strategy that\u00a0turned out to be very effective. It had assigned its front line Ministers to the front bench\u00a0of the NPP and the strategy was to respond, to heckle, to cajole, to admonish and to\u00a0literally make it impossible for the NPP MPs to be heard on the issue.\u00a0The NDC had accurately predicted he reaction of the NPP. The latter got angrier and\u00a0angrier and on one occasion, they protested that Speaker Justice Annan was\u00a0deliberately refusing to \u201ccatch the eye\u201d of their members who wanted to speak Things\u00a0came to a head when they alleged that an NDC MP had thrown a punch at an NPP MP.\u00a0Justice Annan ruled that even if it was true, it must have happened on his blind side\u00a0because he did not see it. And that was it. Led by their leader, Honourable J. H. Mensah,\u00a0the NPP Minority walked out of the House and boycotted the rest of the day\u2019s\u00a0proceedings and that was the last that was heard in Parliament of \u201cthe Gwarzo affair\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nana Ato Dadzie\u00a0<\/span>and Kwamena Ahwoi stated that, they appreciate their time working under Rawlings and would never intentionally seek to discredit him in any way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“We wish to state that, the two of us worked very closely with President Rawlings. We were two\u00a0of his closest confidantes. The opportunity he gave us to serve the nation was a very rare one\u00a0indeed which we will forever cherish. We will be the last persons to write or say anything that\u00a0will detract from the quality of the service that we performed for him and the state or that will\u00a0even remotely hint at disloyalty to him.”<\/p>\n

Rawlings demonstrates \u2018honesty\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seasoned journalist, Paul Adom-Otchere, has said that former President, Jerry John Rawlings\u2019 admission that he took only two million dollars while still in office from then president of Nigeria, Sani Abacha, is a demonstration \u00a0of his increasing commitment to honesty<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, and the well-being\u00a0of the country. While admitting that the revelation came as a shock to him, he stated that\u00a0it was a sign of\u00a0the former president\u2019s evolution as a person, since handing over power in 2001.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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,\u201d\u00a0Paul Adom-Otchere 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 from Ghanaians<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/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

Rawlings may have received Abacha\u2019s $5m in full \u2013 Journalist\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Ghanaian journalist who was at the forefront of reports in 1998 alleging that former President Jerry John Rawlings had received $5 million from late Nigerian President, Sani Abacha, punched holes into Mr.\u00a0Rawlings\u2019 sudden confession that he only received $2 million.<\/p>\n

Although former President Rawlings admitted in an interview with the Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria that he did receive money from the Nigerian leader, he stated that\u00a0he only received $2 million dollars, instead of the $5 million alleged 18 years ago.<\/p>\n

But the journalist, William Nyarko, who worked with The Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper at the time, said information he gathered then indicated that former president Rawlings may have received $5 million dollars<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

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

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

Two of Jerry John Rawlings’ closest aides during his time in office, Nana Ato Dadzie and Kwamena Ahwoi, say they did not know about his acceptance of some $2 million from the late Nigerian President, Sani Abacha, contrary to the ex-leader’s claim they knew about it. The duo have also expressed their displeasure about\u00a0assertions\u00a0attributed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":232138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWe didn't know about Abacha's $2m to Rawlings - Ahwoi, Ato Dadzie - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. 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