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| Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. |
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, a prominent figure in the field
of law as well as politics, is now serving as the President of Ghana.
In both 2008 and 2012, he ran for office but was unsuccessful.
Between the years 1996 and 2008, Nana Addo won the election to serve as a
Member of Parliament for the Abuakwa South seat located in the Eastern region
of Ghana on three separate occasions.
During the administration of President John Kofi Agyekum
Kufuor, he held the positions of Cabinet Minister, Attorney General, and
Minister for Justice from 2001 to 2007, and then he was promoted to the
position of Minister for Foreign Affairs after that.
Background on Presidential Bid
Nana Akufo-Addo ran for the presidency
of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in October 1998 and came in second place,
losing to John Agyekum Kufuor. Kufuor went on to win the presidential election
in Ghana in December 2000 and took office as President of the Ghana in 2001.
Akufo-Addo is currently serving as President of Ghana.
Akufo-Addo served as the head of
Kufuor's election campaign in the year 2000, and he was subsequently appointed
as the first Attorney General and Minister of Justice under the Kufuor
administration. In July of 2007, Akufo-Addo tendered his resignation from the
Kufuor administration so that he may run for the post of presidential candidate
for his party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which was Ghana's leading party
at the time. These elections took place in 2008.
In the first round of that
election, he competed against 16 other candidates and garnered 48% of the
votes; however, in the second round, he received a unanimous support from the
party's members, which made him the party's presidential candidate. In the first
round of voting for the presidential election held on December 7, 2008, he
garnered more votes than John Atta Mills, who went on to win the election.
In the first round of voting,
Akufo-Addo earned 4,159,439 votes, which was 49.13% of the total votes cast.
This put him in first place, but it was not enough to give him an outright win
since an outright victory requires 50% of the vote. In the runoff election,
Mills earned 4,521,032 votes, which is equivalent to 50.23 percent of the
total.
Akufo-Addo ran for president once
again in the national elections in 2012, but he was defeated by John Mahama,
the candidate of the NDC. That election gave rise to a great deal of
contention, and in the end, the matter was resolved by the Supreme Court, which
ruled in favour of John Mahama in a narrow 5/4 decision.
In March of 2014, Akufo-Addo made public his intention to run for president of Ghana a third time and seek the candidacy of his party in advance of the 2016 election. In a race with seven other candidates, the primary election for the party's presidential nomination was held in October 2014, and he won with 94.35 percent of the vote. In 2014, Akufo-Addo presided over the Commonwealth Observer Mission in South Africa, which was tasked with monitoring the country's elections.
Political Career
Akufo-Addo was a member of the
People's Movement for Freedom and Justice in the past. He held the position of
General Secretary (PMFJ). This organisation was in charge of the "NO"
campaign during the UNIGOV referendum in 1978, which was intended to garner
public support for a state that was dominated by a single party. Akufo-Addo
served as chairman of the Organising Committee of the Danquah-Busia Memorial
Club in the year 1991. Akufo-Addo embarked on a journey throughout Ghana to
build new chapters of the Club in various cities and towns across the nation.
Before the elections in 1992, these
branches finally metamorphosed into local organs of the New Patriotic Party
(NPP). After serving as the first National Organiser of the NPP in 1992, he
went on to become the Campaign Manager for the NPP's First Presidential
Candidate, Professor Albert Adu Boahen, later that same year.
In 1995, through the
Alliance For Change (AFC), a broad-based political pressure organisation,
he led the "Kume Preko" (Kill me already) demonstrations in
protest of the difficult economic circumstances that prevailed throughout the
Rawlings administration.
Between
the years 1996 and 2008, Akufo-Addo won the election to serve as a Member of
Parliament for the Abuakwa South seat located in the Eastern region of Ghana on
three separate occasions. Under the administration of President Kufuor John
Kufour, he held the positions of Cabinet Minister, Attorney General, and
Minister for Justice from 2001 to 2007, and then moved on to serve as Minister
for Foreign Affairs after that.
Legal and Business
Career
During his time in France,
Akufo-Addo worked as an attorney for the multinational legal firm Coudert
Brothers, which was established in New York but has since closed its doors. In
1975, he went back to his hometown of Accra in order to pursue his law
profession there. Between the years 1975 and 1979, he worked in the chambers of
U.V. Campbell.
1979 saw the establishment of the
legal firm Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co., which he was a co-founder of.
Akufo-Addo has held positions on the boards and committees of a variety of
organisations in the nation, including those that are political, legal,
commercial, and social.
He was the first Chairman of DHL
(GH) Ltd., the first Chairman of Kinesec Communications (Co) Ltd., which was
the publishing company behind The Statesman, and the first Chairman of the
Ghana Committee on Human and Peoples' Rights. As a result of his involvement
with the American company Millicom, he was the one who was ultimately
responsible for bringing mobile telecommunications to the nation.
Educational Background
Akufo-Addo attended the Government
Boys School in Adabraka and then moved on to the Rowe Road School, which is now
known as Kimbu, both of which are located in Accra Central. Akufo-Addo
completed his elementary schooling. He decided to prepare for his O-Level and
A-Level tests in England at Lancing College, which is located in Sussex.
In 1962, he moved back to Ghana to
take a teaching position at Accra Academy Secondary School. Two years later, in
1964, he enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Economics programme at the
University of Ghana in Legon and graduated with that degree in 1967. After
that, he went on to study law in the United Kingdom, and in July 1971, he was
admitted to the English Bar (Middle Temple). In July of 1975, Akufo-Addo was
admitted to practise law in Ghana.
Family
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was
born and raised in the Ga-Maami neighbourhood of Accra Central as well as the
Nima neighbourhood of Accra. After it was established in Saltpond on August 4,
1947, the country's first political party, the United Gold Coast Convention
(UGCC), used his father's home, Betty House, located in the Korle Wokon
neighbourhood of Accra, as its de facto headquarters.
His great-granduncle J.B. Danquah,
his uncle William Ofori-Atta, and his father Edward Akufo-Addo, who served as
Ghana's third Chief Justice and then as the ceremonial President of the
Republic from 1969 to 1997, were all members of the "Big Six," which
is another name for Ghana's founding fathers. Rebecca Akufo-Addo
(nee Griffiths-Randolph), is Nana Addo's wife, and they have two children
together. They have five daughters, and those daughters have given them five
grandkids.
Source:
ghananews.hrforum.uk
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