Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, Ghana’s former first lady and a formidable presence in the nation’s political and social landscape, died early Thursday in Accra. She was 77.
Family sources said Mrs. Agyeman-Rawlings passed away at the Ridge Hospital in the early hours of October 23. As of Thursday afternoon, neither the Rawlings family nor government officials had issued a formal statement.
Mrs. Agyeman-Rawlings, the widow of the late President Jerry John Rawlings, was widely regarded as one of Ghana’s most influential female political figures. A tireless advocate for women’s rights and social development, she played a key role in shaping national discourse during and after her husband’s presidency.
After breaking from the National Democratic Congress (NDC)—the party her husband founded—she established the National Democratic Party (NDP), through which she continued to champion social equity and empowerment initiatives.
Her final public appearances reflected her enduring prominence in national life. In recent weeks, she joined dignitaries at the Jubilee House to lay wreaths in honor of eight public servants killed in a helicopter crash, and later attended the Dote Yie funeral rites for the late Asantehemaa, Nana Konadu Yiadom III.
At the latter event, she was accompanied by two of her children, Amina and Kimathi Agyeman-Rawlings, as the family paid their respects to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.
Mrs. Agyeman-Rawlings’s death marks the passing of a pioneering political figure whose influence spanned decades of Ghana’s modern history.
