Rawlings book launch today

The much talked about book on former President Jerry John Rawlings will be launched today at the Teachers’ Hall in Accra after an initial disagreement with the author by the former president.

The 385-page book to be launched by President John Mahama, is entitled, “JJ Rawlings and the Democratic Transition in Ghana.” The parties finally agreed on out-of-court settlement after the case had landed at an Accra Fast Track High Court.

The book, written by Prof Kwaku Danso-Boafo, a former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, was supposed to be launched on August 20, 2014 but ex-President Rawlings filed an application to stop the event, accusing Prof Danso-Boafo of bad faith.

The former president claimed in his affidavit in support of the motion that Prof Danso-Boafo had undertaken to wait for him to review the book and correct all ‘factual inaccuracies’ in it, but “has breached his own solemn undertaking with me, and has published it with the view to launching it.”

However, Prof Danso- Boafo, in his affidavit in opposition, said the book was not intended to and would not bring former President Rawlings and his family into disrepute.

The Fast Track High Court sitting on the case agreed to the terms of settlement presented by the parties in the case, giving way for today’s launch.

The book, according to the author, was intended to “put in the public domain, the holistic history of what happened in Ghana under the plaintiff’s rule as Head of State, matters which are of public interest, enquiry and debate.”

He said the book was from an “intellectual perspective and fair analysis of historical events which occurred during the Rawlings’s public life from military rule through transition to democracy and written in a very objective light.”

The book will be the first ever on Ft. Lt. Rawlings since he left office as president of Ghana in 2001.