John Bilson was a

Ghanaian Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

doctor and politician.

Career

In May 1969, he founded the

All People's Congress The All People's Congress (APC) is one of the two major political parties in Sierra Leone, the other being its main political rival the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP). The APC has been the main opposition party in Sierra Leone since 4 Ap ...

, which despite some support from the '' Legon Observer'' failed to make any impact in the 1969 parliamentary election. He contested the 1979 presidential elections as leader of the Third Force Party: in the first round of voting on 18 June 1979 he came sixth out of ten candidates, with 2.8% of the vote. In 1981, the Third Force Party was one of the opposition parties which tried to merge into the All People's Party, although political parties were soon banned after

Jerry Rawlings Jerry John Rawlings (22 June 194712 November 2020) was a Ghanaian military officer and politician who led the country for a brief period in 1979, and then from 1981 to 2001. He led a military junta until 1992, and then served two terms as the de ...

's coup at the end of the year. In 1992, Bilson launched a lawsuit challenging the eligibility of Rawlings to stand for the presidency, on the grounds that he was not a Ghanaian national.'Rawlings sued over nationality ', ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'', 9 October 1992

References

External links

Reference to the "late John Bilson"
2000s deaths Year of birth missing Ghanaian medical doctors Candidates for President of Ghana All People's Congress (Ghana) politicians St. Augustine's College (Cape Coast) alumni {{Ghana-politician-stub