In the Footsteps of Kwame Nkrumah: In Memoriam Jerry Rawlings, President of Ghana, 1979, 1981-2001

In the Footsteps of Kwame Nkrumah: In Memoriam Jerry Rawlings, President of Ghana, 1979, 1981-2001

Nov. 16 (EIRNS)—Following in the footsteps of Kwame Nkrumah — Ghana’s first President and visionary leader — Jerry Rawlings, who died on Nov. 12, carried on Nkrumah’s program to electrify Ghana. He was a deeply inspirational leader whose greatest desire was to see a modernized Ghana and Africa. He was very popular, but never sought to gain from it.

When asked about himself following the successful coup d’état in 1979, Rawlings said:

“I am just an ordinary hungry, screaming Ghanaian who wants to realize his creative potential, who wants to contribute.”

In 1979, as a Flight Lieutenant involved in a failed military coup d’état, Rawlings was imprisoned and sentenced to death. A faction of the Ghanaian military broke him out of prison. The June Fourth Revolution in 1979 then took place in the form of a second coup. This time the nation and its military stood with Rawlings against a succession of corrupt military governments, the last being that of Lt. Gen. Akuffo. Rawlings took power and within months turned the country over to civilian rule. Two years later, Rawlings overthrew the civilian government which had proven to be corrupt, and took power. In 1992 he resigned from military office and formed the National Democratic Congress. He served two terms in office.

Jerry Rawlings is said to be famous for bringing multi-party democracy to Ghana. Kwame Nkrumah had dissolved all opposition parties during his tenure. It is more the case that in order to secure funding from the IMF, Rawlings acceded to its demands of liberalizing the economy, privatizing many state assets, and introducing multi-party democracy.

Rawlings should be remembered for continuing Ghana’s electrification program, which was begun by Kwame Nkrumah with the building of the Akosombo Dam.

The Japanese, in an effort to build a “Japan in Africa” in the early 1990s, based on the directed credit and infrastructure orientation which had built their own economy as a spearhead for the rest of Asia, chose Ghana, primarily because of the strong, development-oriented leadership of Jerry Rawlings. A fierce attack on the project by the British and the IMF sabotaged the effort. See https://larouchepub.com/other/2020/4731-japan_got_the_china_treatment.html [pdl/dc_]