Remembering JJ: 77 attempts were made to eliminate Rawlings – Former Chief of Staff recounts

NB: Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the passing of late former president Jerry John Rawlings on November 12 2021, we take you down memory lane of some monumental moments of the late Ghanaian leader and some memories shared by persons who knew him.

Nana Ato Dadzie, a former Chief of Staff under the J.J Rawlings administration, Nana Ato Dadzie, has revealed that there were 77 attempts made to eliminate the former president during a 10-year period.

According to him, all of such attempts and plans to oust the former military ruler of Ghana mostly failed but created an aura of fear and insecurity at the residence of the then-president which was at the Osu Castle.

In an interaction on Joy News, the former Attorney General revealed that these attempts led Jerry Rawlings to isolate himself from his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and their children in order to protect them.

"It was a difficult time for us especially in the first 10 years as the politics then was so fierce. People simply wanted to remove Rawlings from power. There were over 77 attempts to eliminate him,” the former Chief of Staff recounted.

"You can understand what this will mean for his family. He literally didn’t have a family and I sympathised with his wife and children at the time. We were at the centre of the major attack at the castle and we suffered for it," Mr Ato Dadzie stressed.

The former Chief of Staff also described how staff working at the Osu Castle had to live on just drinking coffee and no salary for three years due to a scarcity of food at the time.