A United States-based Ghanaian, Professor Kwaku Asare, has said Ghana benefited immensely from the late former President Jerry John Rawlings.

Mr Rawlings died at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra on Friday, November 12 after suffering a short illness.

In a Facebook post to eulogize him, Professor Asare said “It was just supposed to be an ordinary Monday morning in June until we heard a familiar voice uttering these now extraordinary words: ‘The ranks have just got me out of my cell. In other words, the ranks have just taken over the destiny of this country. Fellow Officers, if we are to avoid any bloodshed, I plead with you not to attempt to stand in their way because they are full of malice. Hatred, hatred we have forced into them through all these years of suppression. They are ready to get it out the venom we created. So for Heaven’s sake, do not stand in their way. They are not fools. If you have any reason to fear them, you may run. If you have NO reason to feel guilty, do not move.”

He added, “That was not the last time we will hear that voice until this ordinary November morning when we learnt, sadly, that the voice is no more."


“They say a man came to do some. He did not come to do it all. You surely did some and more. Deepest condolences to the family. Rest In Peace, Chairman JJR.”

Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has revealed that he and the late former president of Ghana, Jerry John Rawlings had a turbulent and wild relationship that dated years because of the differences in their political ideologies.

But, he said, in the end, the two of them saw value in each other and became the best of friends.

Mr Akufo-Addo said this when he received a delegation from the family of Mr Rawlings when they visited him at the seat of government, the Jubilee House on Thursday, November 12 to officially inform him about the demise of the Founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The president told the family that “I will like to extend my deepest condolences to the family, his widow, children, brothers and entire family."



“I was given this information when I arrived at the office and I found it hard up to now to cope with the information. This is a man of great vitality, dynamism and energy."

“It is very difficult to go and see dead body lying in the morgue but then it is one of the things that all of us have got to get use to because the almighty has his own plans for each one of us."

“He and I had tempestuous relationship over many years but I believe that we came to see value in each other in the end. I am extremely disturbed and saddened by his passage. He is not an ordinary Ghanaian, he was the first president of our Fourth Republic.”