Under a hazy mid-morning sky at Black Star Square, thousands of Ghanaians gathered in a rare collective hush as the casket of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings was carried slowly across the plaza. It was the kind of scene reserved for figures who have shaped the nation’s imagination for decades — a farewell not only to a former First Lady, but to one of the most forceful personalities in Ghana’s modern political life.
Leaders across the political spectrum filled the front rows. President John Dramani Mahama and his wife, Lordina, sat alongside former presidents John Agyekum Kufuor and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and their spouses. Former vice-president Mahamudu Bawumia, diplomats, chiefs, clergy, party officials and ordinary citizens formed a vast circumference of mourners around the ceremonial square.
In his tribute, President Mahama called Agyeman-Rawlings “a hero who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the nation,” praising her as a woman whose convictions “rarely bent to the pressures of political convenience.” He highlighted her founding of the 31st December Women’s Movement in 1982, noting how its literacy, early-childhood, health and economic programmes helped shift the national conversation on women’s rights and participation.
Her son, Kimathi Agyeman-Rawlings, speaking for the family, described her as “a woman of action — strategic, loyal and unafraid.” He recalled her pivotal role not only as partner to Jerry John Rawlings, but as an adviser whose instincts and counsel “quietly shaped decisions that altered the country’s path.”
Those gathered were reminded that before she became a political force, she had been a student activist at KNUST, a young wife navigating the turbulence of the late 1970s, and later Ghana’s longest-serving First Lady. Her critics often saw her as uncompromising; her supporters described the same quality as courage — a refusal to retreat from the causes she believed in.
Mourners also heard glimpses of the private woman: her affection for children, her love of music and dance, her sharp humour, and her deep loyalty to family and friends. The emotional weight of these recollections drew tears from her children and grandchildren, rippling gently through the crowd.
Today’s ceremony followed a requiem mass held earlier in the week at the Accra Ridge Church. After the service at Black Star Square, the procession moved to the Chardo Military Cemetery, where she was buried near the grave of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a symbolic resting place for a figure many described as equally consequential in Ghana’s public life.
Agyeman-Rawlings died on 23 October at age 76. The government declared three days of national mourning, during which flags flew at half-mast and tributes poured in from women’s groups, political parties and community organisers across the country.
Her political journey — from First Lady to founder of the National Democratic Party — reflected the unusual arc of a woman determined to maintain her own voice, even when it placed her outside the mainstream of a party she once helped solidify.
As the final dirges faded and the cemetery gates closed, the sentiment among many in attendance was that her impact would endure. For women whose political paths she helped open, for rural communities her programmes once touched, and for the many who saw her as a symbol of resolve, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings leaves a legacy that will remain embedded in the country’s public memory.
