A former Ghanaian president, Jerry Rawlings, is dead. 73-year-old Rawlings died on Thursday morning at the Cardiothoracic Centre of the Korle Bu Teach
A former Ghanaian president, Jerry Rawlings, is dead. 73-year-old Rawlings died on Thursday morning at the Cardiothoracic Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana from Covid-19 complications.
Born on June 22, 1947 Jerry Rawlings led a military junta in Ghana from 1981 to 1992 after he led a military coup as a Flight Lieutenant of the Ghana Air Force.
On June 4, 1979, a group of soldiers smuggled Jerry John Rawlings, a flight lieutenant in the Ghana Air Force, out of prison — where he was awaiting execution for a failed coup for the overthrow of Fred Akuffo, the military head of state and a lieutenant-general who had barely spent a year as head of state.
Rawlings, a junior officer and just 32 years old, went on to rule for just 112 days before handing over power to a democratically elected government. By then, though, he had executed, by firing squad, eight military officers, including three former heads of state — Akwasi Afrifa, Ignatius Kutu Acheampong and Akuffo — for “corruption”. Keeping them alive, he argued, meant they would continue to destabilise and corrupt the system because of their influence.
All Rawlings ever wanted to do was tackle corruption.
In 1992, he contested and was elected Ghana president after he which he served two terms as democratic president until the year 2000.
