Former Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu has shared an emotional tribute reflecting on the life, character, and political influence of the late Madam Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.
His statement highlights her loyalty to former President Jerry John Rawlings, her role in Ghana’s revolutionary era, her impact on women’s empowerment, and her foundational contributions to the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
“The passing of Madam Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings on 23 October was unexpected, heartbreaking, and shocking. Ghana lost her first and only true heroine of the 4 June and 31 December Revolutions,” Martin Amidu wrote.
He described her as “a woman’s woman” who protected her husband “like no woman I have ever known” and credited her with shaping the NDC’s formation and mobilizing the movement that influenced Ghana’s transition to constitutional rule.
See full statement below;
TRIBUTE TO MADAM NANA KONADU AGYEMAN-RAWLINGS, JERRY
RAWLINGS’ ALTER EGO: BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
The passing of Madam Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (Madam or Madam Rawlings) on
23 October was as unexpected, and heart wrenching as it was most shocking. There was no
indication of illness or medical distress. Ghana lost her first and only true heroine of the 4
June and 31 December Revolutions, and under the Fourth Republican Constitution. Many a
First Lady has come and gone since 31 December 1981, but none will measure up to her
legacy of achievement and compassion for the ordinary Ghanaian, and in particular women
and children with emphasis on the deprived rural communities.
Madam was truly a woman’s woman who married the love of her life, Flt Lt Jerry John
Rawlings, stood by him in thick and thin, in happiness and distress. Madam AgyemanRawlings made her husband’s cause her cause and paid the price of anguish and distress anytime he got into trouble or was attacked by enemies, adversaries, or traitors within his
circle of friends. She had the woman’s knack for ferreting out hypocrites and insincere
opportunists. She protected her husband like no woman I have ever known in my life. Her
commitment to her husband and her family irked many cadres and friends of her husband
who thought she stood in their way. She was a rare species of total commitment to family and
her country.
Madam Rawlings supplemented her dear husband’s government’s policies with active
advocacy for women and children’s rights, and the practical provision of facilities to cushion
the poverty of ordinary women and children. It was her passion to mobilize and ensure social
justice for the woman and man in the street to complement the revolutionary agenda of
equality and social justice that led to the establishment of the 31 December Movement of
which so much has been chronicled even by those who were not participants in or witnesses
to the events. I saw her passion to empower women in rural communities to generate income
and feed their families particularly malnourished children from my vantage position as a
cadre from February 1982, and later a minister of state in her husband’s regimes from
February 1983 to 7 January 2001. She ensured that women cadres of the revolution were
offered training and skills to serve their communities and the nation to supplement the efforts
of their families.
Madam Rawlings’ role in the transition to Constitutional rule has gone untold and
underestimated. Without her the participation of women in the political process would not
have increased in the leaps and bound we saw in this country for the first time during that era.
When the transition to Constitutional rule brought internal divisions as to whether operatives
and supporters of the 31 December Revolution were going to participate in the unfolding
constitutional process after the writing of the 1992 Constitution or hand over to an established
political party or parties, she had the knack to smell internal conspiracy to denude her
husband’s place in the transition to constitutional rule.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) needs to remain forever indebted to her for
mobilizing the late Mr. Justice D. F. Annan, the late Mr. J. H. Owusu Acheampong, and
Alhaji Iddrisu Mahama, now the Chairman of the Council of Elders of the NDC, for the
meetings at the Blue Gate (National Security Secretariat) between March and May 1992
where eventually there was an agreement to establish a political party for those cadres and
supporters of the PNDC who could not join the CPP inclined National Convention Party
which the late Captain Kojo Tsikata was gestating as a PNDC Member and National Security
Advisor.
Madam suggested the name National Democratic Party (NDP) for the new political
party which was modified by substituting the word “Congress” for “Party” which was
registered as the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The Umbrella as a symbol and the
colours of the NDC were designed or commissioned and approved by her before they were
adopted by the NDC with little modifications. Nobody can deny her the place of the Mother
of the NDC. I was the Chairman of the House Committee of the Consultative Assembly, 1991
and Deputy Attorney-General leading the PNDC cadres in the Consultative Assembly who
participated in these events and bear witness to her role and commitment to the founding of
the NDC.
Madam’s tireless mobilization of citizens for continuity was a critical factor in the success of
the NDC in the 1992, 1996, and 2008 elections. Madam was misunderstood by the regular
members of the NDC when true to character she insisted that the undertaking given by the
late Professor Mills that he was doing only one term as President due to ill health must be
kept and contested the NDC primaries on 11 July 2011 in Sunyani in the then Brong Ahafo
Region. When the visibly sick President Mills changed his mind, to my knowledge as a result
of pressure from his puppet masters, Madam would not give way.
Madam Rawlings’ ideology has aways been National Democracy; so, she formed the
National Democratic Party (NDP) which she had suggested in 1992. Other founding
members of the NDC formed political parties such as the Democratic Freedom Party, lost
elections, and were enticed back to the NDC. The Paradox was and is still that her dear
husband who remains the founder of the NDC stayed with the NDC without any attempt
being made by the NDC to reconcile with her during his lifetime and thereafter.
On the first anniversary of the remembrance of our dear late Chairman and President
Rawlings, on 12 November 2021, I pleaded, inter alia, that:
“May [it] “touch the hearts of those who have inherited his mantle to reach out to
every cadre and member who had associated with him during his lifetime and to bring
unity amongst all his accolades. This cannot materialize without seeking to reconcile
with his dear wife without whom the social democratic tradition he epitomizes would
have died in 1992 in the transition to Constitutional governance. ….His dear wife,
needs to be engaged notwithstanding the needless fall outs from Sunyani in July 2011
and after, whatever the cost.”
After Madam’s demise I heard attempts had been afoot to reconcile with her this year. I hope
to God this is true and not the usual Ghanaian opportunism of wanting to cash in on the
everlasting silence of the dead. I also hope that this is not the politics of using the name of the
dead we once hated for convenient political mobilization towards electoral ends. That Madam
Rawlings’ departed to meet her husband without witnessing the rehabilitation of her husband
as the founder and leader of the NDC after his almost two decades of leading Ghana to enable
her bear witness to him when they meet in the home of the ancestors is an indictment on the
NDC.
I have borne the passing of former President Jerry Rawlings from 12 November 2020 and
that of Group Captain Richard Forjoe from January 2022 traumatically and depressingly. I
had not visited or spoken to Madam Rawlings for quiet sometime even though I still
defended her place in the NDC. When I received Madam Rawlings’ message a few months
ago from the first daughter asking me why I was sending her messages about how to handle
the memory of her dear husband instead of coming to discuss them with her, I did not
understand that I was being summoned to see her before it was too late, as it did on 23
October 2025.
Madam Rawlings, the heroic First Lady of Ghana and President of the 31 December
Women’s Movement in her lifetime always put Ghana First in actions and deeds. Her passing
has elicited an outpouring of praises from least expected sources with a decision to honour
her with a state funeral. May Madam Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings’ passing be the
beginning of real reconciliation and remorse for the mistreatments of the past.
Ghana’s heroine First Lady, the Mother of the 4 June, and 31 December Revolutions, NDC ,
and NDP has fought a good fight and finished the race both as a Roman Catholic and a
patriotic Ghanaian.
May Madam Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings Rest in Peace!
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
