Nana Agyeman-Rawlings was born on November 17, 1948, in Cape Coast, Ghana
By Kehinde Okeowo
Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the former First Lady of Ghana and widow of the late President Jerry Rawlings, has passed away.
According to YEN, a reputable media outlet in Ghana, Agyeman-Rawlings died at the Ridge Hospital in Accra at the age of 76.
While confirming the incident to the media outfit on Thursday, a National Democratic Congress (NDC) executive and government appointee described her passing as a ‘sad’ event.
‘The sad news happened a while ago at the Ridge Hospital in Accra,’ the executive noted.
The Rawlings family has yet to release an official statement on her passing.
Nana Agyeman-Rawlings was born on November 17, 1948, in Cape Coast, in Ghana’s Central Region, to the late J.O.T. Agyeman and his wife.
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In 1984, she founded the 31st December Women’s Movement (DWM), an influential non-governmental organisation focused on women’s empowerment, education, and economic independence.
As a prominent member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Nana Konadu was elected the party’s First Vice Chairperson in 2009. In 2011, she made history as the first woman to challenge a sitting Ghanaian president—John Evans Atta Mills—for the NDC’s presidential flagbearership at the party’s congress in Sunyani, although she was unsuccessful.
Following her departure from the NDC, she established the National Democratic Party (NDP) in October 2012. She later became the party’s presidential candidate in the 2016 general election.
She married Jerry John Rawlings, then an officer in the Ghana Air Force, in 1977, and they had four children.”
