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 – William Shakespeare’s third definition of greatness which is thrust upon some was the apt definition of what happened to the Scottish-Ghanaian Airforce Officer.

He took over power and waged a fierce anti-corruption war. Corruption had eaten deep into the fabric of the Ghanaian society like many post independence African states. ‘Kalabule’ was a local word for corruption and he had a zero tolerance for the scourge.

His exposure to the ills of corruption came from high school when he attended the prestigious Achimota College which was the Eton cloned school for many of the Ghanaian elite. He noticed how some of the sons of politicians and top military officers lived opulently clearly beyond the legitimate means of their parents while the sons of the poor lacked the basic things needed to make life worth living for them. At that impressionable age, he began to ask critical questions on the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor and pragmatic ways in which to solve some of the numerous societal ills.

Read more: https://thefederation.com.ng/2020/11/15/adieu-jerry-john-rawlings-by-tony-ademiluyi/