By Abiola Olawale
Ghana is shrouded in grief on Thursday, October 23, 2025, following the passing of a former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, who died at the age of 76 in Accra.
Sources close to the family confirmed that the former First Lady, the widow of the late President Jerry John Rawlings, passed away on Thursday, October 23, 2025, at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital after a short illness.
The New Diplomat reports that Agyeman-Rawlings was Ghana’s First Lady from 1981 to 2001. She was often hailed as Ghana’s ‘Iron Lady’ for her courage.
She was the widow of Ghana’s longest-serving leader, Jerry John Rawlings, who died five years ago.
He led two coups before being twice elected president in multiparty polls.
Social media is awash with tributes to the former first lady, politician, and women’s rights advocate, who Ghanaian presidential spokesperson Felix Kwakye Ofosu said had died after a short illness on Thursday morning.
Her family visited President John Mahama in the afternoon to officially notify him of her death. The president leads the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, founded by Jerry Rawlings after he took power.
Agyeman-Rawlings also had political ambitions – but lost out in her bid to become the NDC’s presidential candidate in 2012.
As first lady, she founded the 31st December Women’s Movement to empower women and teach them how to earn money to develop their communities. It was named after the date of her husband’s second coup, which took place in 1981.
Born in November 1948, Agyeman-Rawlings came from a middle-class family and grew up in the city of Cape Coast.
She met her future husband when she became a boarder at the prestigious Achimota School in the capital, Accra.
