Rawlings, the untold story--part 2

In this final instalment, Major Kojo Boakye Djan tells Osei Boateng how, and why, Rawlings became a member of the Free Africa Movement.

According to Major Boakye Djan, Rawlings was brought into the Movement primarily because of the threat that the Ewe dominance of the Ghana Armed Forces posed to the country and the aspirations of the Movement itself as far back as 1975.

At the time, and close on the heels of an all-- Ewe-inspired "one man, one matcher" failed coup attempt within the military, intelligence study had found that Ewes, who made up about 10% of Ghana's population, occupied 58%Jo of all ranks in the army, navy, airforce and border guards.

"Naturally," Major Djan says, "the 58% presented the FAM with a dilemma. What did it mean to the future of the Movement? What did it mean to what we wanted to do? We were caught in the situation where if we were to use the 58% to take or influence power in 1984, we had to do something about the balance both within the army and our Movement.

"We came to the conclusion that because of the potential danger the Ewe dominance of the military then posed, if we were not careful we could give them power by default and then they could wreak havoc on all of us. Meanwhile we could not ignore the fact that they dominated the instrument we wanted to use to gain or influence power. It was a big dilemma.

"We had to find a middle way by shopping for somebody to join the Movement from the Ewe constituency whose tribal loyalty could be diluted. In other words, we didn't want a native Ewe. We wanted an Ewe who was not fullblooded but who could hold his people at bay. We calculated that because such an Ewe would have diluted loyalty to the Ewe tribe, the Movement could control him to create a proper balance. We looked at the available candidates, and settled for Rawlings.

"We found that as a half caste, he met the first condition. And he was also known to behave more like a European than an Ewe. His projected wife at the time was a Swiss girl. We didn't tell him why we wanted him in the Movement. We told him his restlessness was something that appealed to us. He was over the moon. 1962, the first meeting

Djan had known Rawlings from their days at Achimota School. While Djan was in Sixth Form, Rawlings was in Form Four. They had first met in 1962 through a most bizarre event. Djan had been hauled in by the school authorities (then predominantly British) to answer why he was not attending morning prayers.

"At the time," Dian remembers, "Achimota was obsessed with rituals. Students had to fill an elaborate admission form which covered almost every area of their lives. On my form, I had written `ancestral worshipper' in the box for religion. But it didn't apparently register with the school authorities until I began to absent myself from morning prayers."

One day, the British headmaster, Alan Rudwick, saw Djan in the reading room at prayer time. "What do you think you are doing, young man? Why aren't you at morning prayers," he asked.

"Sir," Djan replied. "But I have already informed the school that I am an ancestral worshipper. It's on my admission form."

"Ancestral what?," Rudwick nearly spat out the words. "You come from a Catholic School, Opoku Ware [in Kumasi], and you tell me you are an ancestral worshipper?"

"Yes, Sir," Dian said. "I was supposed to be a Catholic, but I changed my mind on the way.

The headmaster did not like what he was hearing, so he called the school's Catholic priest, Father O'Sullivan, an Irishman, to intervene. O'Sullivan was less liberal. To him, ancestral worshipping was nothing but heathenism. But Djan would not take any of it. As tempers rose, O'Sullivan told Rudwick to expel Djan from the school because he was trying to undermine the school's impeccable religious foundation. But as Rudwick was more liberal than the Irishman, he called a truce and asked Djan to meet the authorities the following Sunday in his house.

They met at the appointed time. Present was Dr Alan May, the physics professor; Dr McQuinn, the classics professor; and two other Ghanaian theologians. They interviewed Djan in a calmer atmosphere.

Without mincing words, Djan told them that he was born into an African religion that, in the main, was practised through the process of pouring of libation.

"This process of pouring libation is simple," he said. "Our people invoke the elements in the sky that symbolise the Supreme Being assumed to be the He-God Nyankopon Kwame Twediapon Kokoroko born on Saturday, and the elements on and in the earth that symbolise the Earth Goddess Asase Yaa born on Thursday. The third leg of the trinity is the ancestors who have gone before us."

He continued: "The African worldview is encapsulated in this trinity of forces: The forces of the elements in the sky and on the earth; and the spiritual world which is a reflection of the living world. What it means is that we acknowledge God as a supreme entity just like the Christians do, just like the Muslims do, just like the Buddhists do. The difference is that ours is not an organised religion, it's not a congregation, you are born into it."