Former Ghanaian First Lady Nana Agyeman-Rawlings dies at 76

By Isa Isawade

Famous Ghanaian ‘Iron Lady’ and former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, has passed on at the age of 76 years.

According to local media reports, Nana passed away in the early hours of Thursday, 23 October, at the Ridge Hospital in Accra.

The wife of Ghana’s longest serving leader, Nana was born on November 17, 1948, in Cape Coast, Central Region.

Her husband, former President Jerry John Rawlings, was very popular with the Ghanaian people and ruled the west coast country for a combination of nineteen (19) years both as military and civilian leader.

He passed away on 12th November 2020 at the age of 73.

Nana herself was a towering figure in Ghana’s political and social landscape.

She founded the National Democratic Party (NDP) after leaving the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) and was widely recognised for her strong advocacy on women’s empowerment and social development.

Joyonline described her death as the closure of an extraordinary chapter in Ghana’s political and social history.

She was often referred to as the ‘Iron Lady’ of Ghanaian politics due to her activism in the 1980s and 1990s.

She was also the first woman to run for president in Ghana. Nana was “an uncompromising force, a dedicated women’s rights advocate, and a trailblazer who repeatedly challenged the political status quo, cementing her legacy as one of the most significant and formidable female figures in the nation’s post-independence era.”

By virtue of her husband as the Country’s longest ruler, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings remains Ghana’s longest First Lady.

According to her biography aggregated by the news medium, Nana received her secondary education at the prestigious Achimota School, where she met her future husband, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings.

She went on to study Art and Textiles at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and earned an Interior Design Diploma from the London College of Arts in 1975.Online art courses.

Her subsequent academic pursuits, including a diploma in Advanced Personnel Management and a certificate in Development from GIMPA, reflected her intellectual drive.

Her life became intrinsically linked to Ghana’s political trajectory upon her marriage to Rawlings in 1977.

She was the founder and president of the 31st December Women’s Movement (31st DWM), established in 1982 as a grassroots machine focused on mobilising and empowering women, especially in rural Ghana.

The mission was driven by her belief that women held the key to breaking the cycle of poverty.

The 31st DWM’s achievements were concrete and widespread, transforming the role of women from mere recipients of aid to active political and economic participants: