Nana Akufo-Addo will today, January 7, 2017, be sworn-in as Ghana’s new President after he emerged winner of the December 7 Presidential elections.
The 72-year old Lawyer and three-time Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) succeeds the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, who goes into history as the first President to have served just one term under the Fourth Republic.
He beat former President Mahama by garnering 53.85% of the total valid votes cast, as against Mahama’s 44.4%.
Nana Akufo Addo contested the NDC’s John Evans Atta-Mills in 2008 but lost. He again failed on his second try in 2012 against the NDC’s candidate John Mahama.
The NPP had the strong believe that the NDC rigged the election hence filed a motion at the Supreme Court to challenge the results of the elections in a legal tussle which dragged for 8-months. At the end the Supreme Court upheld the election results declared by the Electoral Commission in favour of the NDC.
Akufo Addo’s Early life and education
Akufo-Addo was born in Accra, Ghana, to a prominent Ghanaian royal and political family as the son of Edward and Adeline Akuffo-Addo. His father was Ghana’s third Chief Justice from 1966 to 1970, Chairman of the 1967-1968 Constitutional Commission and the non-executive President of Ghana from 1970 till 1972.
Akufo-Addo’s maternal grandfather was Nana Sir Ofori Atta, King of Akyem Abuakwa who was a member of the Executive Council of the Governor of the Gold Coast before Ghana’s independence.
He is a nephew of Kofi Asante Ofori-Atta and William Ofori Atta. His great-uncle was J. B. Danquah, another member of The Big Six.
He started his primary education at the Government Boys School, Adabraka, and later at the Rowe Road School (now Kimbu) both in Accra Central. He went to England to study for his O-Level and A-Level examinations at Lancing College, Sussex. He began the Philosophy, Politics and Economics course at New College, Oxford in 1962, but left soon after.[6] He returned to Ghana in 1962 to teach at Accra Academy Secondary School, before going to read Economics at the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1964, earning a BSc(Econ) degree in 1967. He subsequently studied law in the UK and was called to the English Bar (Middle Temple) in July 1971. Akufo-Addo was called to the Ghana bar in July 1975. Akufo-Addo worked with the Paris office of U.S. law firm Courdet Freres. In 1979, he co-founded the law firm Prempeh and Co.
Political life
Akufo-Addo’s participation in politics began in the late 1970s when he joined the People’s Movement for Freedom and Justice, an organization formed to oppose the General Acheampong-led Supreme Military Council’s Union Government proposals.
In May 1995, he was among a broad group of elites who formed Alliance for Change, an alliance that organized demonstrations against neo-liberal policies such as the introduction of Value Added Tax and human rights violations of the Rawlings presidency.
The broad based opposition alliance later collapsed as the elite leaders jostled for leadership positions. In the 1990s, he formed a civil rights organization called Ghana’s Committee on Human and People’s Rights.
Presidential bids
In October 1998, Nana Akufo-Addo competed for the presidential candidacy of the NPP and lost to John Kufuor, the man who eventually won the December 2000 presidential election and assumed office as President of Ghana in January 2001. Akufo-Addo was the chief campaigner for candidate Kufuor in the 2000 election and became the first Attorney General and Minister for Justice of the Kufuor era before he was later moved to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NEPAD.
In 2007, the former Attorney-General and Foreign Affairs Minister was the popular candidate tipped to win NPP’s presidential primaries. In 2008, Akufo-Addo represented NPP in a closely contested election against John Atta Mills of NDC.In the first round of voting, Akufo-Addo tallied 49.13%, leading Atta Mills with a slim margin that was below the constitutional threshold of 50% to become the outright winner.
Akufo-Addo again was NPP’s presidential candidate in the 2012 national elections against major rival NDC’s John Mahama, successor of Akufo-Addo’s previous rival, the late Atta Mills. Mahama was delcared the winner of the election, an outcome that was legally challenged by Akufo-Addo. The court case generated considerable controversy, and was finally decided by the Ghana Supreme Court in a narrow 5/4 decision in favour of Mahama. Akufo-Addo accepted the verdict in the interest of economic stability and international goodwill.
In March 2014, Akufo-Addo announced his decision to seek his party’s nomination for the third time ahead of the 2016 election. In the NPP primary conducted in October 2014, he was declared victor with 94.35% of the votes. Akufo-Addo also served as Chair of the Commonwealth Observer Mission for the South African elections in 2014.
On November 30, Akufo-Addo received the endorsement of the All People Congress in Ghana’s Northern region. He focused his campaign on the economy, promising to stabilize the country’s foreign exchange rate and reduce unemployment levels.
On 9 December 2016, sitting president John Mahama conceded defeat to Nana Akufo-Addo.
