Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings

Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings was the wife of former President Jerry John Rawlings and Ghana's longest-serving First Lady. She did not treat the role as ceremonial. Through the 31st December Women's Movement she built one of the largest women's organisations in Ghana's history, and in 2016 she became the first woman to stand for President of Ghana. She died in Accra on 23 October 2025, aged 76.

Cape Coast, Achimota and Kumasi

She was born in Cape Coast on 17 November 1948 to J. O. T. Agyeman. After Ghana International School she went to Achimota School, where she met the young Jerry Rawlings. She studied art and textiles at what is now the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, where she was a student leader at Africa Hall. She later took a diploma in interior design at the London College of Arts in 1975, a personnel management diploma in 1979, a development certificate from GIMPA in 1991 and a fellows certificate in philanthropy from Johns Hopkins University in 1994.

Twenty years at the Castle

She married Jerry Rawlings, then an Air Force officer, in 1977. She was First Lady twice: briefly in 1979 under the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, and from 31 December 1981 until January 2001, through the PNDC years and both of her husband's elected terms. In 1982 she founded the 31st December Women's Movement, which grew to about two million members and set up more than 870 pre-schools, alongside credit and income projects for rural women. Her supporters credit her campaigning for the Intestate Succession Law (PNDCL 111), which protected widows and children, and for Ghana's early ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

A politician in her own right

In 2009 she was elected First Vice Chairperson of the National Democratic Congress. In 2011 she challenged President John Evans Atta Mills for the party's 2012 presidential ticket and lost. She then left the NDC and led the breakaway National Democratic Party (NDP) until 2024. As the NDP's candidate in the 2016 election she became the first woman to contest the Ghanaian presidency, winning 0.16 percent of the vote. She filed again for 2020 but scaled back her campaign after her husband died in November that year. Her memoir, It Takes a Woman, came out in 2018.

Family

She had four children with Jerry Rawlings: Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, now MP for Korle Klottey, Yaa Asantewaa, Amina and Kimathi. Her sister, Nana Yaa Agyeman, was married to the journalist Harruna Attah.

Death and remembrance

The government announced that she died on the morning of Thursday, 23 October 2025, at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (Ridge) after a short illness. She was given a state funeral at Independence Square on 28 November 2025 and buried at the Military Cemetery, Burma Camp. On 23 October 2026 the family held a memorial Mass at the Holy Spirit Cathedral, Adabraka, to mark the first anniversary of her death.