More facts have emerged on how one of the Africa’s military strongmen, a former military President of Ghana who fired and escaped several bullets, Jerry Rawlings, was reportedly killed by COVID-19.
His family has however denied that he was killed by COVID-19.
Rawlings, a coup leader earlier escaped death after he was imprisoned, publicly court-martialed and sentenced to death in 1979.
He died on Thursday at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, capital of Ghana, on Thursday morning, exactly two weeks after he buried his mother, Victoria Agbotui.
A flight lieutenant of the Ghanaian Air Force, Rawlings first staged military coup as a young revolutionary on May 15, 1979, five weeks before scheduled elections to return the country to civilian rule.
When the coup failed, he was imprisoned, publicly court-martialed and sentenced to death.
From prison, he plotted another coup and took back control of the country on December 31, 1981 and became chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).
He recently buried his mother, Victoria Agbotui, at Dzelukope in the Volta Region on October 24, 2020.
She died at 101 on September 24, 2020.
Shortly after the burial, Rawlings fell seriously ill and was hopitalised after showing symptoms of COVID-19.
He had underlying illnesses which worsed the infections and eventually led to his death.
He resigned from the military, founded the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and became the first president of the Fourth Republic in 1992.
He was re-elected in 1996 for four more years. After two terms in office, the limit according to the Ghanaian constitution, Rawlings endorsed his vice-president John Atta Mills as presidential candidate in 2000.
He was born on June 22, 1947.
