Rawlings died from complications of COVID19 at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, capital of Ghana, on Thursday, November 11.

He had recently buried his mother, Victoria Agbotui, at Dzelukope in the Volta Region on October 24, 2020. She died at 101 on September 24, 2020.

Late Rawlings ruled Ghana from 1981 to 2001. He led a military junta until 1992, and then served two terms as the democratically elected president of Ghana. When it failed, he was imprisoned, publicly court-martialed, and sentenced to death.

After initially handing power over to a civilian government, he took back control of the country on 31 December 1981 as the chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC). He then resigned from the military, founded the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and became the first president of the Fourth Republic.

He was re-elected in 1996 for four more years. After two terms in office, the limit according to the Ghanaian constitution, Rawlings endorsed his vice-president John Atta Mills as a presidential candidate in 2000.

He is survived by his wife and children.