Seated on the floor of the jeep that was in the middle of the convoy together with Rex Yamoah and Derek Gavivi, the Speaker of Parliament began to think of the punishment that was going to be meted out to him for not only plotting to assassinate the Vice-President but also for the murders of Kruger, Tiger, Sphinx and Phan Xuan. As the leader of the group, the man whose agenda they were executing that led them to kill three fishermen, a number of police officers and inmates of a police cell as well as the National Security Coordinator, Ian Sackey, there was no way he could escape blame for the murders. He knew he had blood on his hands and he was bound to be found guilty and sentenced to death.
Thoughts of his imminent death made him begin to think of the people closest to him. They were his two children who were living and schooling in London; a young man and woman. The young man, Kenneth Adu-Tutu was studying architecture while the young woman, Kate Adu-Tutu, who was the eldest of the two, was studying medicine at Oxford University. He wondered what they would think of him when his arrest became public and the media began to publish and broadcast news about him and the crimes he had committed. He loved his children very much and wished there was a way he could prevent them from hearing all that was going to be said about him. He wondered how they would react to the media siege that was going to take place, revelations that would be made in court that would shock the nation, when he is sentenced to death and when he is executed.
The way Rex was cooperating with the soldiers, Adu-Tutu came to the conclusion that the former Deputy National Security capo had cracked and was singing like a canary. This was not good news for the Speaker because the security capo had been his partner in crime; he knew everything about all the criminal activities he had engaged in. If now he has decided to sing, then he, the Speaker, was in trouble. He wondered whether Rex was going to limit his confession to their plot to assassinate the Vice-President or he was going to talk about some of the other dirty things he had done in the past, using him.
He remembered the several times, as a child and later on as a teenager, his grandmother admonished him never to resort to crime. Her often repeated mantra was “Kwesi, there is no shame in honest labour”, urging him to always engage himself in honest labour to make a living.
The jeep swayed from side to side as it continued its journey through the rain, to the offices of the MI. Derek had buried his face in his palms and was crying silently. He too was thinking of what would become of his eight months old pregnant wife and the baby boy when he is finally born. He told himself he had failed them. He would never be able to see his son.
“Derek, you were very stupid. You allowed yourself to be part of such a stupid enterprise just so somebody else could become President. You did not think of what would happen to your wife and yet to be born son if you were caught. See the situation you now find yourself in and are about to put them through”, he rebuked himself.
The Speaker of Parliament’s thoughts shifted to his girlfriend. That she was in the grips of the authorities hurt him so much. And what is more, he knew he was never going to be with her again. Thoughts of her in the arms of another man hurt him badly. It was too much for him. He quickly shifted his thoughts away from her lest he be consumed by pain.
He began to think about all that he had acquired over the years. He had made so much money from politics using subterfuge, blackmail and every Machiavellian strategy he knew about. He fervently believed in Niccolo Machiavelli’s principle that “Men should either be treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.” He did not only believe in it but lived it. But of course, he always was covert about his activities such that saw him for who he was….