Ghana’s longest-serving head of state, Jerry John Rawlings has died three weeks after he buried his mother.
The sad death has caused the Former First Lady of Ghana who also doubles as the Presidential Candidate for the 2020 Presidential Elections, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings to respond to the unfortunate demise of her husband.
According to Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, her husband was rushed to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra on Sunday but there was no need for the news to be in the public domain.
She further shared that her late husband suffered from the novel coronavirus pandemic.
“My husband died after he contracted COVID-19 and was rushed to the intensive care unit of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra” she said in an interview by the media that gathered at her residence.
Biography of the Late Jerry John Rawlings
READ Military rule is the best system of governance for Ghana — Rawlings
The founder of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) was last seen in public was on October 19, at the Forecourt of the State House and Dzelukope in the Volta Region to bury his mother.
The former military leader was born Jerry Rawlings John on 22 June 1947. He ruled the country from 1981 to 2001 and also for a brief period in 1979.
He led a military junta until 1992, and then served two terms as the democratically elected President of Ghana.
Rawlings initially came to power in Ghana as a flight lieutenant of the Ghana Air Force following a coup d’état in 1979.
Prior to that, he led an unsuccessful coup attempt against the ruling military government on 15 May 1979, just five weeks before scheduled democratic elections were due to take place.
After initially handing power over to a civilian government, he took back control of the country on 31 December 1981 as the Chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).
In 1992, Rawlings resigned from the military, founded the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and became the first President of the Fourth Republic.
He was re-elected in 1996 for four more years.[5] After two terms in office, the limit according to the Ghanaian Constitution, Rawlings endorsed his vice-president John Atta Mills as a presidential candidate in 2000. He currently serves as the African Union envoy to Somalia.
