The former President and founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is dead
According to a report sighted on Graphic.com.gh by thedistin.com, Rawlings died at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital after suffering a certain ailment.
He was said to have been on admission at the hospital for about a week now for an undisclosed illness and passed on in the early hours of Thursday, November 12, 2020.
The former president died at age 73, two weeks after he buried his mother Madam Victoria Agbotui in October.
He left behind his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman, and four children – Zenator Rawlings, Yaa Asantewaa Rawlings, Amina Rawlings, and Kimathi Rawlings.
He was a former Ghanaian military leader who ruled Ghana from 1981 to 1992 as Head of State.
He was then democratically elected President of Ghana in 1992 and served till 2000. After two terms in office, Rawlings endorsed his vice-president John Atta Mills as a presidential candidate in 2000.
However, his party, the NDC, handed over power to former president John Agyekum Kufour of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Rawlings initially came to power in Ghana as a flight lieutenant of the Ghana Air Force following a coup d’état in 1979.
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 and founded the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and became the first President of the Fourth Republic.