Farewell, Jerry John Rawlings

June 4,1979 was a defining moment in Ghana’s chequered political history. It was the day when the word ‘Revolution’ roared throughout the length and breadth of the former British colony which was once called The Gold Coast.

On May 15, 1979, a then obscure Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings led an unsuccessful coup against the government of the then Military Head of State, General Frederick William Kwasi Akufo. The 32-year-old mixed race officer was subsequently arrested and was waiting to be court martialled and executed for the failed attempt. On June 4, some junior officers who believed in Rawlings’s cause forcefully broke into the prison and released him from detention and ferried him to the government house.

He took over power and waged a fierce anti-corruption war.