Ghana’s former President, Jerry John Rawlings, was seen as both a champion of the people as well as controversial, as his personality and style of leadership generated varying degrees of opinion both in Ghana and in the international community.
The son of a Scottish farmer and a Ghanaian mother, Rawlings graduated from the Ghana Air Force in 1969. In his early days as a pilot, he flew around some cities and rural areas in Ghana. Sadly, for the first time in his life, Rawlings discovered that the way to measure the true quality of life of Ghanaians was not the factsheet of government publicists claiming sundry achievements. What he saw was a country immured in poverty on account of government initiatives that merely kept the people in disempowering hardship, so they would continually cling to their benevolent leaders like nursing babies.
While the majority of Ghanaians wallowed in lack, government officials treated themselves so sumptuously that it rankled. Several years of national mismanagement progressively denied the people any measure of national pride and self-sufficiency. It was no longer possible to hide the ugly image of wealth and poverty side by side, nor the hypocrisy that sustains rather than respond to it.
Corrupt leadership brought Ghana into frontal collision with forces of self-regression. Leaders couldn’t build a muster point for true national visions higher and nobler than their immediate range of personal ambitions. Because of the leaders’ inability to inculcate a healthy mix of energy and determination, well-defined goals, and an ethical framework to keep within honest parameters, the nation became a tragic example of the consequences of unchecked ambition. The leadership structure in Ghana was run by “big men” who were resolutely wedded to hierarchies that did not give room for convivial dialogue and interaction.
In addition to these, were a cocktail of evils such as corruption in immeasurable magnitude in high places, poor infrastructure, human rights violations, stunted social development and inept leadership. It’s evident that wealth accumulation process strips the soul of all decency, and that supposition, disqualifies one from any leadership position.
In the hour of need, leaders lead. The then Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings took steps to correct what he saw as the indiscipline, corruption and mismanagement of the military regime. He criticized the government of the day, and gained the support of the people. As part of what he termed “house-keeping exercise,” he led two coups. He launched a coup attempt in May 1979 which failed, and he was arrested and sentenced to death. But he escaped from death row through the cooperation of junior officers and other ranks, with whose support he was able to overthrew the country’s military leader, Gen. Frederick W.K Akuffo. He was executed by firing squad along with other former two heads of state, military officers and Supreme Court Justices.
When asked why he carried out the coup, Rawlings’ response further endeared him to the people: “I am not an expert in economics and I am not an expert in law, but I am an expert in working on an empty stomach while wondering when and where the next meal will come from. I know what it feels like going to bed with a headache, for want of food in the stomach.”
On December 31, 1981, Rawlings staged another coup and held sway as the leader of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). The coup paved way for a new government, the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC). The government ushered in multi-party elections in 1992, when Rawlings was first elected president by impressive margins, and in 1996 when his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), achieved substantial parliamentary majorities in those two elections.
Rawlings’ political rise was criticized for alleged human rights abuses by his opponents. He tacitly acknowledged this fact in his statement: “I am still aware that we in Ghana do not like bloodshed. I personally do not like it. I mean, I’d rather, let’s say, confiscate a man’s wealth and bring him down to the level to which he’s brought us just to give him a taste of what life has been, what he’s done to us.” On the other hand, what his sympathisers saw in him was a man who was operating from a position of strength by saying things the way they were. For his supporters, his actions were necessary steps to transform the country into a democratic state.
Beyond politics, Rawlings executed progressive reforms that improved the lot of the people and ranked Ghana high on developmental indexes.
Economic crisis in Ghana, characterized by food shortages, led to a spike in inflation rate of about 150 per cent. According to New York Times report, many hotels pleaded with their clients “to bring their own soaps, towels, soft drinks and sometimes even food.” Economic solutions proffered by Ghana’s 6th Head of State, Gen. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, including “Operation Feed Yourself” and “Operation Keep Right,” recorded massive failure at the national level but managed to achieve limited success among the locals.
As a committed socialist, Rawlings introduced free-market reforms in the midst of spiralling foreign debt, and tried to transform Ghana into a Marxist state but later abandoned the idea.
He devalued the Ghana’s currency and privatised some of Ghana’s important assets including coffee and cocoa plantations, to address challenges of austerity as part of “structural adjustment programme” in line with the policy of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions. He advocated for the cancellation of international debts owed by African nations. Rawlings’ reforms eventually brought about economic recovery and economic stability especially by the early 1990s.
Rawlings took actions that portrayed Ghana in good light especially in the comity of nations. He voluntarily left the presidency in 2001, an unusual action by an African leader.
The International Herald Tribune described him as “Africa’s first former military leader to allow the voters to choose his successor in a multiparty election.”
He contributed troops to UN peacekeeping operations, particularly in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Iraq and Lebanon. This made Ghana a major player in UN peacekeeping missions. Within the logic of reciprocity, he was named the African Union (AU) envoy to Somalia in 2010.
Eventually, Ghana, the first African country to become independent from Britain, regained some normalcy. Rawlings, who doubled as the leader that served longest in Ghana, set his country on the road to democratisation. Today, Ghana is one of Africa’s most stable and most consolidated liberal democracies, with many national institutions strengthened and made more independent. Peaceful transfer of power from one government to another, has become the order of the day in Ghana.
With his death at the Korle-Bu University Hospital in Accra at the age of 73, Rawlings is being remembered as one of few African statesmen who never lost touch with reality and the common man. His demise in a hospital in his country meant that he was a man of humble origins and frank dispositions. A man who spoke the language of the masses yet radiated a powerful intellect and scholarly presence, stripped of arrogance. His determination to create a country of his dreams, prompted a number of tributes to his memory. Many African leaders sent in their tributes in honour of Rawlings.
Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, said:
“The entire African continent will sorely miss the sterling qualities of the great leader.”
Ghana’s President, Nana Akufo-Addo (from the opposition party, announced seven days of national mourning), said: “A great tree has fallen, and Ghana is poorer for this loss.”
Liberian President, George Weah, said: “Ghana, Liberia and Africa will miss a great leader. Liberia remembers his immense contribution to the attainment and sustainment of peace during the dark days of our own history.”
Hate Rawlings or like him, what cannot be denied is that he contributed immensely to the fortunes of Ghana. The working class in Ghana saw him as one of the country’s best leaders. The average citizens of Ghana who witnessed his leadership both as a military leader and civilian president, described him and Kwame Nkrumah as the country’s most effective leaders because “they made people fear the law.”
Rawlings was a committed patriot who served his country at the highest levels with an uncommon sense of patriotism and unwavering dedication. His observation that some Ghanaian politicians had no business being in politics, is a candid admission of the obvious degenerate quality and moral bankruptcy of political leadership, not just in Ghana but in Africa as a whole.
Without any claim to individual genius, Ghanaian and indeed, African leaders, will do well to distill the collective wisdom of Rawlings and other democratic patriots, to enhance better life for the citizens. Devoid of any form of posturing, this in itself, is an invitation to all Ghanaians to reflect on the true purpose of leadership.
Nations, especially when governed by innovative and inspiring leaders, can leapfrog into exemplary status.
Moses, Publisher, Researcher, Biographer, Phonetics Instructor, Managing Consultant, Legacy BookMedia, Lagos
