Marilyn Maame Efua Houadjeto, the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), has recounted a terrible experience her father endured during a coup by the late and former President Jerry John Rawlings.

She said her father was throw over a hill and was nearly shot dead but for the spontaneous kindness of a military person.

“We were in Tamale, and he was in charge of the military hospital during the coup. It was other ranks that traumatised the senior officers. With him, that was tough because he was bundled with another and was taken to this hill in Tamale, and got them rolling down the hill,” she told JoyPrime.

“My father couldn’t stop thanking God because he said they were about shooting and somebody spared their lives.”

Maame Efua noted she and her siblings “felt their pain,” intimating she had, thus, come to dislike President Rawlings who had led Ghana at this controversial time.

Years later, she continued, she came to forgive President Rawlings.

“Sometimes you just have to let the past go. Funny enough, former President Rawlings was one of my favourite people. I somehow forgave him and grew to love him. He is also a very humble person because he kept on saying he needed to see my father and apologise to him,” she explained.

“There was a time he gave my father the opportunity to serve in government, but my father said he is a medical officer and doesn’t want to do politics. It was easy to forgive him,” Maame Efua futher said.