Former President Jerry John Rawlings has disclosed how he was nearly buried alive after he handed over power in 1979. Ghana’s longest-serving President said there were several attempts on his life after he handed over power to then head of state Hilla Limann. Speaking at the 75th-anniversary celebration of the Ghana Mineworkers Union he claimed that at a point in time attempts on his life were so intense that he was persuaded to leave the country which he refused to do. According to Mr Rawlings, Ghana’s Intelligence Agencies with support from the western allies craved to bury him alive. “After my handover to Limann’s government in 1979, there were many by the intelligence machinery in the collaboration with the Western Embassies to persuade me to leave the country as they had done with the other colleagues. “My refusal to do so unleashed an avalanche of fabrications designed to assassinate my character as a prelude to my physical elimination. The Western Intelligence machinery threatened to bury me alive and they very nearly succeeded.” Mr Rawlings, now 72, is a former military leader who ruled from 1981 to 2001 and also for a brief period in 1979. He led two coup d’etats – in 1979 and on December 31, 1981, to overthrow the regimes of General F. K. Akuffo of the Supreme Military Council II and President Hilla Limann of People’s National Party, respectively. He led a military junta until 1992 and then served two terms as the democratically elected head of state.   According to Mr Rawlings, the coup of June 4, 1979, which became known as the June 4th Revolution or Uprising was necessitated by the need to bring an end to corruption, rot and abuse of power that had become the order of the day then.