BREAKING: Ghanians mourn as Jerry Rawlings passes on

By Ezurike Ugochukwu

The west African country, Ghana was Thursday thrown into mourning with the reported death of her former President Jerry John Rawlings.

Rawlings, born on June 22, 1947, passed away at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

As a military leader, the former Air force officer had shot  his way into power in an abortive coup on 15 May 1979.

He thereafter ruled the country from 1981 to 2001, after which he resigned from the military in 1992 and founded the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

He contested election under NDC and was sworn in as the first President of the Fourth Republic and was re-elected in 1996 for another four years.

At the expiration of his tenure, he did the uncommon thing in Africa, by endorsed his vice-president John Atta Mills, as presidential candidate in 2000 which he won.

With the exception of the towering Ghanian and African nationalist Kwame Nkrumah, no other Ghanaian ever bestride the Ghanaian political landscape like Rawlings did.

He will be remembered for the various far-reaching reforms he brought into the polity of the country formerly called Gold – Coast.