Limann's term. In his dawn broadcast to the nation after the coup, Rawlings called for'a holy war to transform the socio-economic structure of the Ghanaian society'(Ghana News Agency, 1982: 1). The Rawlings Era in Ghanaian Politics Immediately after securing power, Rawlings and his fellow coup makers formed the Provisional National Defence Council(PNDC), which laid down the regime's major goal: transferring power to the people within the context of transforming Ghana's economic and political context. According to Rawlings, the revolution'was not a military coup in the sense of another opportunity for some soldiers and their allies in trade and the bureaucracy to come to power for their own ends. It is rather to create by this action, an opening for real democracy, government of the people, by the people and for the people'(Daily Graphic, 2 January 1982). To exemplify the popular basis of this'revolution', the three arms of the military were renamed the People's Army, the People's Navy and the People's Air Force. It is of significance that the'real democracy' Rawlings spoke about or democracy of any sort, only happened in Ghana 10 years after this declaration, when the 1992 Constitution came into force. This populist assertion sets the tone for the populism of Rawlings and the PNDC. The period witnessed the dissolution of parliament, suspension of the Constitution, and the introduction of'revolutionary justice' which resulted in gross abuses of human rights, and the rule of workers' and people's defence committees and the encapsulation of civil society(Ocquaye, 2000: 53). Having 85