Rawlings was incorruptible - Kwesi Jonah

Dr. Kwesi Jonah of IDEG has said that one of the outstanding features of the late former president, Jerry Rawlings, that won him so much popularity and love, was that he was an incorruptible man.

The political scientist and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) said long before Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings was an elected president, he commanded so much love, respect, and fame because what he stood for what brought positive change to the country.

In his assertion, there were many critics of Rawlings who, at the time, did not quite understand or appreciate his ideologies.

“He appeared to be such an enigma in the eyes of people because people didn’t understand what he stood for. He wasn’t a very ideological person. He had to change and to transform the economy and the political system but not from a very rigidly ideological standpoint and those who did not understand him to be such a pragmatic politician saw him in all kinds of perspectives that were absolutely not correct.

“So to understand Rawlings very well, one would have to go back to the time he came to power in 1981. The economy was in crisis and the nation’s political system was notoriously unstable which compelled him to take over power and the man (Mr. Rawlings) succeeded in spite of various ideological pressures. He adopted pragmatic measures that restored the economy back to health and then gradually reconstructed the political system to the very stable system we have at the moment,” he eulogized Rawlings.

He stated further that, “One thing that you can say about Rawlings is he was not corrupt and incorruptible. So he had this moral stature among the people that he led. Therefore, people were ready to listen to him and go along with and that is what made him succeed in bringing our political system to where it is now.”

He was speaking on Citi TV and Citi FM’s weekend current affairs programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, January 30, 2021.

Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings died at the age of 73 on November 12, 2020, at the 37 Military Hospital and was buried on Wednesday, January 27, 2021, at the new Military Cemetery in Accra.