People with conscience are sometimes appalled by the extreme insensitivity displayed by some political appointees. The unprecedented levels of corruption, offensive show of power and opulence by some at a time when our country requires prudence and frugality is something that I call on President Mahama and his vice to set their eyes on
John Jerry Rawlings (Accra, Britsh Colonial Ghana, June 22, 1947 - Accra, Ghana, November 12, 2020) was a Ghanaian soldier and politician who jointly served as Head of State and Government of the Republic of Ghana between 1981 and 2001, and previously for a brief period in 1979. He first came to power following a military coup in 1979, in which he was responsible for organizing the transition to an elected civilian government led by Hilla Limann, which he then knocked down at the same time. in December 1981. He served as the country's de facto presidency for more than a decade as a military dictator, and later engineered a democratic transition, being elected constitutional president in 1992, as a candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) , opposition parties objected to the election results, citing vote inflating in areas where they were believed to lose, but the Commonwealth Observer Group, led by Sir Ellis Clarke, approved the election as "free and fair" as there were very few problems at polling stations and no major incidents of electoral coercion. In contrast, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) issued a report supporting claims that erroneous voter registration entries could have affected election results. The Carter Center acknowledged minor electoral problems, but did not see them as indicative of systematic voter fraud. and re-elected in 1996.
In the 2000 elections, the NDC candidate, Vice President John Evans Atta Mills, was defeated in the second round by opposition John Kufuor. Rawlings, respecting the term limit unlike other authoritarian rulers, peacefully handed over the presidency to him in January 2001, in what was the first transition between two Democratic presidents from different political parties in Ghana's history. He died at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in the Ghanaian capital on November 12, 2020 at the age of 73, a victim of COVID-19.