Rawlings will not be buried until NDC regains power

Politics of Saturday November 21, 2020

Source: Daily mail

2020-11-21

Ghana’s largest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has stated that its late founder and the country’s longest-serving president will not be buried until the party he formed returns to power.

NDC Upper East Regional Secretary Donatus Akamugri made the statement on Friday when party supporters held a vigil in Bolgatanga honoring the late former president, Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, a week after his sudden death in the capital. of the country, Accra.

“The Rawlings must be buried when we are in power. It will be retained if our political party does not return to power to bury it. If he had wanted to be buried, then he should have been called to eternity before the election period. We had three weeks for the elections when he died. So his soul won’t rest in peace if we have to bury him when the elections approach. And he was eager to cast his vote for his party. And once he’s passed away and the elections haven’t been made, we think he wants us to win the election and bury him. If we stay with us, if we don’t win the election, Rawlings is supposed to stay until the NDC comes back to power and then we bury him.

“And surely, this election, we will win it because, with the spirit of Rawlings, with the way he has contributed to this country and the people watching what he has done and even his opponents now calling him an angel, they would do it an honor for their party. return to power and then bury it. Therefore, we call on everyone in this country, including our party members and those who pay tribute to Rawlings as a good person, to pay the best tribute to him by making sure the NDC wins the election and then, your party will. be in power and bury it. That is when it will go to its Creator without any hindrance or harm to it, ”said Akamugri.

A veteran political figure, John Tia, greeted Rawlings that night and described him as a selfless man who lived his entire life for the common man.

“It was JJ Rawlings who said that Ghana belonged to all the people of Ghana. This is how electricity got to the north. Thus he developed our ways. He sacrificed his life and developed this country. He believed in the common person. I believed in freedom, ”remarked the former ambassador to Cuba and Minister of Information.

The paintings recall the revolt of 1979, from the death guard room to the castle of power.

Members of the United Cadres Front, an anti-corruption force that Rawlings helped build decades ago, participated in the night watch.

The paintings also paid homage at night, recalling how a 1979 military revolt saw Rawlings ripped from “the Death Watch Room” and projected into the “Castle of Power.”

“It was on the morning of May 15, 1979, that Lt. Jerry John Rawlings’s name appeared in ecstasy and prominence. A highly charged group of junior officers from the Ghana Armed Forces rebelled against senior officers from the Ghana Armed Forces. Their goal: to restore the image of the Armed Forces that had fallen to a very low level. The most profound statement made by Flight Lieutenant JJ ​​Rawlings was during his court martial, where he declared the following: ‘Leave my men alone. I am responsible for everything. ‘

“Facing imminent death at the hands of a firing squad, another group of junior officers rescued him from the guard room and sent him to the Ghana Broadcasting House on June 4, 1979, to broadcast the overthrow of the military regime . Dubbed a “house cleaning exercise,” the riot became popular, attracting ordinary citizens, students, market women, and so on. The students left their classrooms and lectures to evacuate the cacao from the interior. Discipline, integrity, hard work, and fairness were the hallmarks of the time. Comrades, we can better remember our founder JJ Rawlings if we adhere to his philosophy of probity, accountability, social justice and social democratic ideals of the Democratic National Congress, ”said the cadre front in a tribute read by Comrade Francis Ayaaba.

The party is also scheduled to organize a “Probity and Responsibility” street walk and clean-up exercise in the region in honor of the late “Champion of Democracy” on Saturday.