Deputy General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Obiri Boahen, has said it would have been best for Ghana’s longest serving Head of State, former President Jerry John Rawlings, to confess and apologize for his wrongs before dying.
Mr. Rawlings passed on after a short illness at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.
Sharing his view on the life of the former Ghanaian leader who served under both Military rule and democratic governance, Mr. Obiri Boahen said “Sometimes, one must come out openly and make a confession where he has erred. It is very important. All throughout his life, when he {Mr. Rawlings} was alive, some of us took him on.
And I kept on saying that I wished Rawlings would one day come out openly to tell the whole world that ‘I Jerry John Rawlings as a human being, I might have stepped on the toes of some people and therefore I do hereby render an unqualified apology to those individuals’ – That would have been the best. But he never made such confession.” Mr. Obiri said on A1 Radio’s Daybreak Upper East program.
Despite admitting what he termed as bold, courageous and principled leadership style of former President Rawlings, Mr. Obiri Boahen noted that his failure to confess his wrongs and apologize for same served as his major shortcoming.
The body of Mr. Rawlings was on Wednesday, 27 January, 2021, buried at the Military Cemetery at Burma Camp in Accra after a state funeral was held in his memory.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Ghana
