It was a 'cat and mouse' relationship – Nana Konadu speaks on relationship with late mother-in-law

Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings has described her relationship with Victoria Agbotui, her late mother-in-law, who passed away over the weekend aged 101, as a ‘cat and mouse’ situation.

She explained that they sometimes had sweet moments and at other times it was bitter but to her, all these were sweet moments for her.

“It was a cat and mouse relationship. Sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter but for my side, always sweet,” Nana Konadu said on Asaase radio’s Sunday Night when she was asked what her relationship with her late mother-in-law was like.

Nana Konadu indicated that the demise of her late mother-in-law has not been easy for her family, especially her husband, Jerry John Rawlings.

“He is coping. Of course, it won’t be easy because his older brother passed before the mother and it was difficult for him; for your mother to go, that’s a difficult situation…”

She explained that when she first met Madam Victoria Agbotui in 1976, during a formal introduction as the wife-to-be to JJ Rawlings, Madam Agbotui was very upset.

According to the former first lady of the Republic of Ghana, her mother-in-law felt that someone else should have married JJ Rawlings. She added that she didn’t have to work hard to pass that resistance from her in-laws.

Nana Konadu recounted that Rawlings knew his family and knew what he wanted, so he didn’t let the resistance stand in the way of the love story.

She added that Rawlings had to persuade his aunties to speak to his mother on his behalf.

“He [Rawlings] had to tell them who I am and the family I come from and if anybody was going to complain then it shouldn’t be them but from her [Konadu] family…and so one of the aunties took us to one other ‘mama gas’ and she agreed to go and do the engagement because he [Rawlings] insisted,” Nana Konadu narrated.

Nana Konadu indicated that at the time, she thought that the resistance would not be a problem but eventually it did.

When asked whether there were class expectations from her family as to the person she should get married to Mrs Rawlings indicated in the affirmative, and also added that ethnicity played a part, because of the Asante and Ewe stereotype.

“It was my uncles and aunties who were creating the whirlwind and Opoku Ware at the time said the Ashantis had always had their aliens as Anlos so what’s the big deal, but eventually they were resolved,” she told Nana Yaa Mensah, who sat in for the regular host Kwaku Sakyi-Addo.