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.
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.
READ NDC Will Collapse Soon If Care
Is Not Taken – Jerry John Rawlings Warns Party
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).
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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.
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