Upper East residents share fond memories of Rawlings

Correspondence from Upper East:

Some residents of the Upper East region have eulogized Ghana’s first president of the Fourth Republic, Ft Lt Jerry John Rawlings, describing him as a pacesetter.

The residents in a random interview said the late president left an indelible footprint in the Upper East region in terms of infrastructural and social policies.

A former assembly member for the Dorongo electoral area, Maxwell Adongo said it was the former president’s effort that saw the Northern part of Ghana hooked to the national grid.

“He is the one who brought light to the Upper East region here. He has been able to identify some developmental areas, in fact he is a pacesetter. He is the one who has turned the face of Ghana, Upper East region and for that matter Africa.”

Mr. Adongo who described the late Rawlings as “founder of democracy” added that the late president’s cardinal principle of accountability, probity and justice saw the country moved from the hands of dictatorship leadership to a democratic regime.

Senior Pastor of the Upper Room Pentecostal Church, Isaac Yin on his part, believes the former president has not died but was called home by his maker after he had done executing his task on earth.

Pastor Yin indicated that hitherto the construction of the Tamale-Bolgatanga-Paga asphalted road – another legacy of the Rawlings regime, residents of the Upper East region used to spend days on road traveling to and from Kumasi.

“One thing I cannot forget about Rawlings is the road network to Bolga. We were taking 7 days to get to Kumasi and Rawlings came and constructed this road.”

His track record includes the establishment of the University for Development Studies (UDS), located in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions respectfully, the head pastor stated.

Pastor Yin recounts that the late president Rawlings was a passionate leader to an extend that he had called off an African Union meeting in order to get a firsthand information of Cerebrospinal Meningitis (CSM) outbreak in the Upper East region.

“When there was an outbreak of CSM, this man was in an African Union meeting, he came down to my hometown, Pelungu with plane. People were dying like fowls. His compassion for human was too great.”

Another resident, Evans Dinko said he joined the National Democratic Congress because of the ideologies of the late president.

“Most of us who lived to see his good deeds can still remember him and that attracted some of us to go nearer him by way of supporting wherever he is. In terms of politics, I can say that he was one of the reasons I joined NDC. When he came to Upper East region here, he identified some of us in 2018 elections.”

Mr. Rawlings died on Thursday, November 12, 2020 at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.