An ode to H.E. Jerry John Rawlings

Its devastating, I went to bed with the news, then woke up with the news, He had passed, Rawlings is truly gone, gone with his boom speeches, gone with his aviator-cool, gone with the wisdom Africa so much needs in such a time as this, gone with his jovial self and captivating poise, gone!

I had read much about Rawlings in my school days and I was old enough to have experienced much of his leadership. He was revered for his discipline, respected for his honor, hailed for his affection, hated for his atrocities no doubt, yet loved for his love for His country. such irony. He had so much to say and do, many of the times he had lived and proven his talk.

Think about it, He was in the company of Libya’s revolutionary, politician and political theorist, Gaddafi (what’s there to hate?), the Burkina Faso socialist revolutionary Thomas Sankara and in his own words “Arguably the greatest hero of the 20th Century,) Cuba’s revolutionary and politician, Fidel Castro. what they say about your network is your net worth right. He rolled in with the revolution squad who were openly calling out corruption and myopic leadership.

For those who are lost on Ghanaian history or miseducated on the same, let me simplify it. There were two dispensations of Ghana’s history, each dispensation needed a fighter. In 1957 on the old polo ground in Accra, Kwame Nkrumah and his peers won the fight for freedom from foreign oppression and ushered us into the path of awakening and self-actualization that would create a condition (as written boldly on our coat of arms) of freedom and justice; the freedom of the people and the social justice and fairness of leadership.

Remember Kwame Nkrumah’s speech “The black man is capable of managing his own affairs”. That condition would have spurred us into the development stage. but we got to the point where the greed of our own was now a problem, our own were just looting and amassing wealth for themselves and forgetting the condition; freedom and justice.

Rawlings a Ghanaian Air force officer at 32 attempted to overthrow what he considered a corrupt national government in May 1979. He was jailed, but soon became a hero to the country’s poor people and military. He escaped with the help of some non-commissioned officers on June 4, 1979, then proceeded to a radio station to urge his followers to seize power.

In his own words “The rich became richer, including the high military officers, and most of us were starving,” he said at the time. “I’ve always wanted to do something to correct injustice.”

By the end of the day, the country’s military leader, Frederick Akuffo, had been toppled, the Akuffo regime was charged with corruption and profiteering. This would be the reason to celebrate the June 4 revolution, a revolution that had only just began to continually remind us of the fallout of corruption and light a fire within those who will continually loathe and fight corruption.

Rawlings gave power back to civilian rule, to newly sworn in president Hilla Limann, He and his men retreated to their military positions with a warning to Limann “If people in power use their offices to pursue self-interest, they will be resisted and unseated,” he said, then went on to say “We have every confidence that we shall never regret our decision to go back to the barracks.”

Now Limann’s regime was no different during his first 2 years in office, they were continuing the tradition of corruption and enjoying the largesse of the taxpayer, foreign debt had spiraled and inflation was more than 140%, public discontent began to spill over into unrest. Rawlings had to act, again, He traveled throughout the country, giving speeches to large crowds and calling out what he termed the “rottenness” of a system that “would permit those same corrupt forces to retain their hold on Ghanaian life.”

On Dec. 31, 1981, John led a second coup, calling Limann and his supporters “a pack of criminals who bled Ghana to the bone.” He dissolved parliament and brought a new government, the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) to power, abolished the constitution and banned all political parties except the PNDC and aimed to establish a socialist state; introducing free-market reforms and made Ghana a major player in UN peacekeeping missions.

For almost 10 years Rawlings had cleaned up the system, he had openly announced “I am prepared at this moment to face a firing squad if what I try to do for the second time in my life does not meet the approval of Ghanaians,” Rawling had won us the second fight of freedom from internal oppressors, freedom from the deeds and the misdeeds of our own corrupt people.

Now we had won the freedom of foreign oppressors and the freedom of internal oppressors, we now had to fight for justice, justice of the social contract that the government of democracy had with its people, and so forth. Rawlings would begin the process to return the country back to democratic rule. He had “purged” the country of corruption or so he believed.

Till his death today, Ghana is still fighting the fight of social justice and until we have won, of course, let’s fight on until our governments can prioritize the collective benefit of its people over their own pick-pocket-styled profiteering. Rawlings’ departure will be a waste of a life if the people throw their arms in the air and give up the fight against corruption.

This is a necessary time of reflection that would either plunge our beautiful country on a great path of self-development and sustenance than on to world domination or throw us back to the dark and insufferable regime of neocolonialism that today seeks to plague us. You cannot deny the fact that all he did, he did out of conviction. Convinced that the African can take charge of his own affairs.

If the boom he was well know for meant a fight for social justice, a fight to curb the disconnection of the leadership from its people, a fight for the future of the African child, then let these boom speeches keep up.

Rest In Power, Champ!