It had to be her – Rawlings pours honey on wife

After over 40 long years of marriage, the revered lieutenant and former President, Jerry John Rawlings, can’t stop ‘drooling’ over his wife.

“It just had to be her,” he said in an interview with Asaase radio, monitored by theghanareport.com.

According to the former president, he met Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings at the Achimota School and since then he knew she had to be the one.

“We met at Achimota School and then she claimed I bullied her the first day we came to class, because somehow l found myself in the company of the senior ones.

“Maybe she is right, but she was special even as a young girl, and she is still special and for me, it had to be her,” he said lost between a smile and laughter.

Looking back at all the years together, the former president is convinced he does not deserve her love.

But he was quick to add that nobody deserves her, but himself.

“When we are reincarnated, I will still come back for her. She has always been a good friend,” he noted.

“Nana,” as he affectionately calls her, agrees with her high school heartbreak, the former President but with the caveat that “she will only agree, if she is the man and I’m the woman.”

Marry your friend has often the advice of marriage counsellors. Mr Rawlings, who sounded smitten, re-echoed it.

“Nana has been a very good friend as well. Something that appears missing in people’s relationships is friendship. Friendship is important and to be able to talk and to be able to trade, exchange things, logic…”

For a man who has spent over 40 years with the woman many consider ‘the iron lady’ of Ghana politics, he said, women were worth more than a chauvinist limited worth.

“A woman isn’t there just for whatever, the kitchen and … no, no, no! Women are our partners. We must respect women enough.”

Ghana’s longest-serving President (19 years from December 31, 1981, to January 7, 2001) believes the daughters of eve anchored his long stay in office.

“That is how come I may have lasted as long as I did in office. The role the women played, they were virtually our backbone.  I don’t joke with our women.”

Having been blessed with girls, the former President said made him more compassionate rather than the tyrant people expected.

“People thought having three girls will make me tyrannical. True, because [they thought] I will be taking my frustrations out on people. They didn’t realise that they were making me more and more compassionate,” he said.

Zanetor Rawlings 

Asked if he thought his daughter, Dr Zanetor Agyeman Rawlings, had a future in politics, he paused, sighed and said, “if evil doesn’t triumph she has a good future.”

Regarding Dr Zanetor’s strong characteristics, the former president simply said, “She’s very dedicated, disciplined and a brilliant person.”

According to him, the country needed people like her.

A video of former Rawlings dancing with his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings on her 70th birthday.