JJ Rawlings
The late Jerry John Rawlings

“I refused to look at his body; Rawlings is alive in my heart and brain,” a man, who has been the friend of late former President Jerry Rawlings for 50 years, has said.

Riad Hosiefe, currently in Lebanon, is still struggling to accept his best friend is dead.

“There is a lockdown in Lebanon so I could not come for the funeral but I believe Rawlings is alive,” he said in an exclusive interview on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme Monday.

Mr Hosiefe said the bond between them was so deep that when Mr Rawlings was arrested, he wanted to mobilise men from Lebanon to break jail.

“But for Rawlings, a lot of people would have been executed, he saved many people during the revolution,” he added.

Mr Hosiefe, who claimed to be with late Rawlings during the revolution time, said “he [Rawlings] was the most disciplined person I have ever seen in my life.”

“Ghanaians have lost a great person. He is a man and President of the poor,” Mr Hosiefe added.

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