By Ayo Kehinde
Former Ghanaian leaders Jerry Rawlings has died from from complications associated with COVID-19, He died at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana on Thursday afternoon. He was President of Ghana for two terms, starting in 1992 until 2000.
An erstwhile flight lieutenant of the West African country’s Air Force, he led military coups, first unsuccessfully against the ruling military regime of General Fred Akufo on May 15, 1979, just five weeks before scheduled democratic elections were due to take place and then on December 31, 1981 after initially handing power over to a civilian government. He declared himself as the Chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council, PNDC
In 1992, Rawlings resigned from the military and founded a political party, theNational Democratic Congress NDC, on whose platform he contested and became the first President of the Fourth Republic. He was re-elected in 1996 for four more years.
Born on June 22, 1947, he died on November 12, 2020, aged 73
