A former close associate of the late former president, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, has demystified the widely popular assertion that the former statesman’s fingernails were once pulled out.

He said, while this information became popular, it was not true.

Narrating exactly how he got clarity on the subject and the exact details on how Rawlings started wearing bandages on his hand, Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo said that an incident from one of his travels with the former president, got him to open up to him.

“I was traveling with him and his bodyguards to the Volta region and then when we got to the Shai Hills, we stopped at a Filling Station to get some drinks and water. I got down with some of the guards and by the time we were returning, we realized he had stepped out of the car and was making gestures with his hand that appeared like something was wrong with them.

“Immediately, some of the guards run to me because they knew I was the only one who could calm him down. Apparently, they had mistakenly banged the car door on his hand, hurting his fingers and he decided to share the story of how he began using bandages on his hand – the reason people said his fingers had been plucked out,” he said.

The current Regent for Katamanso explained further how narrated the story of a shooting incident at Burma Camp and how it resulted in his hand being dragged on the bare floor, hurting Rawlings eventually.

“He told me that there was a time there was a shooting incident after he was picked up in connection with the June 4 uprising. Immediately he heard the first gunshot, he threw himself from one side to the other in an attempt to latch onto a car but he didn’t land well.

“Unable to reach a car he was hoping to get on in time before it moved, he hung onto it and in the process, his left arm dragged on the ground, hurting him in the process. So, that was the injury that for a long time, he had a bandage on but people wrongly interpreted it,” he told Citi TV in an interview monitored by GhanaWeb.

Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings died at the end of 73 on November 12, 2020, at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital after a short illness.

He was buried on January 27, 2021, at the new Military Cemetery in Accra.