The Regent for Katamanso, Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, has described incidences that surrounded the arrest of Jerry John Rawlings by the Limann government and how the Cuban government intervened for his release.
He explained in an interview with Citi TV how the former president had been on the radar of the Dr. Hilla Limann government for long, leading to his arrest.
He further explained that one day, at Katamanso, where Rawlings had been visiting some farms he was investing in, he was arrested by the then Military Intelligence (MI) and taken to the bush.
“He was being followed on daily basis - there was no time that he was on his own until one day at Katamanso he was arrested just when he was about to go to the farm.
“He was taken away towards the Peduase area and was kept for the whole day. From my intelligence, before handing over power during the AFRC time, he never visited any country like Togo, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and not even the Western world.
“The only country he visited before handing over to Limann was Cuba. At Peduase, he was kept at the lodge, and at night, he was taken out to the bush. He didn’t know what they were going to do,” he said.
He gave details on how the encounters in the bush were, and how a call from Cuba forced the government of the day to release him.
“At every point in the bush, anytime they stopped, they would hear people asking, ‘Who are those there?’ but then also, there was a call from Cuba that if the government dared touch him, they were not going to get it easy. So that compelled the government at the time to leave him,” he said.
Jerry John Rawlings died on November 12, 2020, at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital after a short illness and has since been buried.
Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo is the Regent of Katamanso