Sé:gbɛ:gnön🍀@KZankeli
1. Let’s agree he was a bastard raised by a single mother. But who really was his mum, and what was her calibre?
2. Victoria Agbotui, Rawlings’ mother, was head of the catering division of State Protocol (what others call the Presidential Household) during the tenure of F.W.K. Akuffo, only resigning when Jerry John Rawlings seized power after the 1979 coup. We can say she attained that solely on merit.
3. But her entry into the public service, her Standard Seven education, her access to a car and driving licence as a woman at the time, we would credit to capital laundering and her elite family background.
4. Aunty Vic was the maternal granddaughter of Tɔgbi Nyaho Tamakloe, arguably the biggest slave trader from the southeastern coast of the Gold Coast.
5. That makes Jerry Rawlings a cousin of Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe of NPP fame and the Nyaho and Chapman medical families.
6. Tɔgbi Nyaho-Tamakloe’s descendants were among the foremost group of people in Eweland to gain access to Western education, become lawyers, medics, diplomats, and politicians, & secure a place within Ghana’s middle & elite classes. Largely through the favour Togbi received from the British for surrendering his slaves in 1874.
7. Tɔgbi's twice grandson, D.A.C. Nyaho, Rawlings' maternal relation, was the first Ghanaian headmaster of Achimota School. And Jerry got admitted while D.A.C Nyaho was still headmaster. Back then, headmasters interviewed applicants before entry was offered.
8. More could be said, but let’s end it here.