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The Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, has described the late former President Jerry John Rawlings as a very notable person who was impatient with corruption.
“He seems impatient with failure, impatient with corruption, impatient with a lot of things.
“Perhaps it was because of zeal and determination that some of the excesses we witnessed may have caused, particularly in the early days of the revolution,” he added.
Mr. Boadu-Ayeboafoh said this in a tribute to the former president who died Thursday at the Korle-Bu University Hospital after a brief illness.
“His charisma is very obvious to everyone and beyond that was his leadership by example. As a way of getting involved, be it a cleanup, whatever in those areas, he got actively involved.
“It was not just ceremonial but there were times when their involvement, they will see that they had made an effort participating in the event, as a way to motivate other people to participate effectively in the things they were doing,” he said.
The NMC president commended the former president for ensuring a smooth transfer of power on January 7, 2001, after the 2000 general election, and expressed his condolences to the wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the children and the family.
He said that people were very skeptical, but Rawlings handed over power because he understood democracy and that it was to his advantage.
Boadu-Ayeboafoh recounted that during his school days in 1979, after Rawlings led the Revolutionary Council of the Armed Forces (AFRC) coup, Flight Lieutenant Rawlings landed with a helicopter at the University’s Commonwealth Hall facility. Ghana to mobilize students. ‘support for the revolution.
He said he was the first student to meet the late president when he got off the helicopter; He added that after his call (from Rawlings), students from the University of Ghana joined the buses from Tata to Accra to demonstrate in support of the revolution.
Mr. Boadu-Ayeboafoh recalled that when he was the feature editor of the Daily Graphic, Rawlings used to read his features and that report later came to him that Rawlings was very pleased with his choice of theme for features and that he had promised to make him a member of the next board of directors of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC).
However, the president of NMC said that when the list of board members of state-owned media organizations was published, he was appointed to the board of the Ghana News Agency.
He said he also accompanied then-President Rawlings on his state visits to Mauritania and Cape Verde, as a correspondent for the Daily Graphic.
Mr. Boadu-Ayeboafoh said that Rawlings had been very consistent in recent times about what he thought about his own party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (PNP); stating that “he never swallowed his saliva, just because it will offend someone.”
He noted that the late former President Rawlings expressed his views boldly and fearlessly because he did many of the things out of conviction.
