Tight security has been deployed to the residence of former President John Jerry Rawlings after his demise on Thursday, November 12, 2020.

Dozens of security vehicles and soldiers were seen in the streets around Rawlings’ home after news of his death broke around midday.

The media amongst other individuals besieged the Ridge home of the former president to gauge the atmosphere in his residence.

Mr Rawlings until his death had become a symbol of political reform who ruled the country from 1981 to 2001 and also for a brief period in 1979.

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.


Jerry John Rawlings is dead

Former President Jerry John Rawlings is dead, GhanaWeb can confirm.

The former president GhanaWeb understands passed on, today, November 12, 2020, after a brief illness.


According to state-owned Daily Graphic, the former President had been on admission at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for about a week for an undisclosed ailment. He was 73.

The founder of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) was last seen in public on October 19, during the final funeral rites leading to the burial of his mother, Victoria Agbotui.


Jerry John Rawlings was born in Accra on 22nd June 1947, to a Ghanaian mother from Dzelukope, near Keta, in the Volta Region, and a Scottish father.