Thursday, June 30, 2022 marked exactly 40 years since three notable High Court Justices were killed during the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) era under the leadership of the late former President Jerry John Rawlings.
The murder of Justices Kwadwo Adjei Agyepong, Poku Sarkodie and Mrs. Cecelia Koranteng-Addow (a nursing mother) on June 30, 1982 together with a former Director of Personnel at the Ghana Industrial Holding Corporation (GIHOC), Major Sam Acquah who was also strangely killed will forever be in the history books of Ghana.
It is believed Mr. Rawlings sanctioned those killings.
Looking back on this gruesome tragedy, one of the persons whose family was a victim of this cruelty, Kwabena Adjei Agyepong recounts how he received the sad news of his father's murder and the impact of coup d'état on the nation.
Mr. Kwabena Adjei Agyepong, a former General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party and son of the late Justice Kwadwo Adjei Agyepong, detailing Ghanaians on the circumstances that led to his family's misfortune, disclosed that he was at the time watching a football match when he was signaled by some people to immediately return home; only for him to be told his father had been killed by some soldiers.
Speaking in an interview with host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" programme, he narrated how his father's demise changed the state of his family as they were forcibly ejected from their home among other challenges which were deliberately orchestrated to frustrate them.
However, Mr. Adjei Agyepong says he has learned to move on but had a message for the youth of Ghana who today wish for a coup d'état to happen in the country.
"Democracy with all its faults is 10 times better than dictatorship where nobody has the right to do anything," he said, stressing a coup should never be found in the vocabulary of the youth.
He noted that coup d'état comes with extreme misery and oppression that he knows none of those caling for it will be able to withstand, therefore advising them "not to even mention the word 'coup' in Ghana if you've lived through it".
"What I want to tell Ghanaians is that we have a beautiful country. Whatever our differences, we have to forgive each other," he added.
Mr. Agyepong also charged the media, which is the fourth estate of government, to showcase stories of people who lived under the coup regime as a way of educating the youth of the consequences of coup d'état.
He said; "Of course, we cannot reside in our past but we have to learn lessons from it so that it will guide us our future steps. You can never change history but you can learn from it and let it be a guide to your forward match. So, I will caution those making such calls because when there is breakdown of law and order, it doesn't matter whether you are a part of the government or not . . . we cannot return . . . never again in this our current system; it's 10 times better."
Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana
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