President John Dramani Mahama, is a leader, Ghanaians will remember for a very long time
The great John Dramani Mahama was born on the 29th November 1958 at a place called Damongo in the northern Ghana region. He is a historian, communications expert, a former minister of state and Member of Parliament, as well as a former vice president of the country(Ghana).
John Dramani Mahama was famously voted and elected president, in an election which was duly and impressively conducted by Ghana’s Electoral Commission on December 07, 2012.
His first term as the President of Ghana was from January 07 2013 – January 06 2017, including serving the remaining five (5) months of the late President J. E. A. Mills’ term.
Below, are 12 facts unknown about the exotic president of Ghana:
Rise to Power
John Dramani Mahama, became the president of Ghana by virtue of being the vice president following the death of the then president john Atta mills who died on 24th July 2012.
Coincidence of the Name ‘John’
Incidentally, Mahama is the fourth person named John to ascend the high office of Ghana’s president. The first was Jerry John Rawlings; the second was John Agyekum Kuffuor, while the third person was John Atta Mills. No significant explanation was given to this, just a coincidence!
Education and Early Years of President John Dramani Mahama of Ghana:
Mahama was born in the northern Ghana region of Damango.
His father was the first MP for the West Gonja constituency and also the first Regional Commissioner for the Northern
region in the times of the first republic of Ghana.
Mahama attended Accra’s Achitoma primary school, Tamale’s Ghana secondary school, and then the University of Ghana in Legon. He later went to the Institute of Social Sciences located in Moscow for further studies.
Early Career:
After finishing his education, Mahama went back to Ghana. He worked as the Culture, Information and Research officer from 1991 to 1996 at the Japanese Embassy in Accra. From this post, he went to the Ghana’s Country Office of PLAN International , a non-governmental organisation, where he held
the post of a Sponsorship Communications, International Relations and Grants manager.
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| President John Dramani Mahama |
As Member of Parliament:
Mahama is an eloquent defender of the underprivileged, something that made him to be first elected to Ghana’s parliament in 1996, representing the Bole/Bamboi constituency.
He was in April 1997 appointed the assistant minister for Communications. By November 1998, he had risen to become a substantive communications minister, a position he held until January 2001 when the NDC party handed over power to the newly elected NPP party.