We were denied a role in Rawlings’s funeral – Anlo State

Secretary of the Anlo Traditional Council’s Funeral Planning Committee for the late Jerry John Rawlings, Agbotadua Kumasah, says the Anlo Traditional Council was denied a role in planning the funeral of their kinsman.

This statement comes after the Anlo Traditional Council vowed to hold a separate funeral rite for former President Jerry John Rawlings with or without the remains of the founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

In an interview with the host of Atinka FM’s AM Drive, Ekourba Gyasi, Secretary of the Council’s funeral planning committee, Agbotadua Kumasah, said Rawlings, until his demise, was a chief and so it was important for the Anlo state to involve the state.

“Until his burial today (Wednesday), we were expecting his body to be released to us so now that they are going to bury him in Accra, we as Anlos will organise our own traditional burial for him. We have had some chiefs who were captured in war. We have had chiefs who drowned and the bodies were not recovered. We had chiefs who were burned to ashes and chiefs who were lost who we didn’t know whether they were alive or not,” he said.

He reiterated that Rawlings was a royal and that there are procedures for burying those people so with or without the body, the Anlo Traditional Council has their own way of organising funerals for such people.

Former President of the Republic of Ghana and founder of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Jerry John Rawlings, died after battling a short illness.

Jerry John Rawlings died at the Korlebu Teaching Hospital Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 73.

He left behind a wife and four children.