President Akufo-Addo today celebrates his 76th birthday, born on March 29, 1944, to Edward Akufo-Addo and Madam Adeline Akufo-Addo and hail from Kyebi in the Eastern Region.
William Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo received his primary education in Accra, first attending the Government Boys School and then Rowe Road School. Akufo-Addo went on to the United Kingdom for his secondary education, studying at Lancing College (1957–61).
President Akufo-Addo returned to Ghana in 1962 to teach at the Accra Academy, before going to read Economics at the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1964, earning a BSc(Econ) degree in 1967. He subsequently joined Inner Temple and trained as a lawyer under the apprenticeship system known as the Inns of court, where no formal law degree was required.
He was called to the English Bar (Middle Temple) in July 1971. He was called to the Ghanaian bar in July 1975.
He worked in France at the Paris office of the U.S. law firm Coudert Brothers from 1971 to 1975. He then returned to Ghana and from 1975 to 1979 worked in the chambers of U.V. Campbell. In 1979 he cofounded the law firm Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co.
Akudo-Addo Political life
Among Akufo-Addo’s family members who figured prominently in Ghana’s pursuit of independence and thereafter in public service were his father, who served as ceremonial president from 1970 to 1972, his great-uncle, the nationalist J.B. Danquah, and his uncle, William Ofori Atta. Akufo-Addo also was engaged in political activism. In the late 1970s he served as general secretary of the People’s Movement for Freedom and Justice (PMFJ), a group that opposed the plans of the military government in place at the time.
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, President Akufo-Addo formed a civil rights organization called Ghana’s Committee on Human and People’s Rights.
In 1992 he joined the nascent New Patriotic Party (NPP) and served as a member of Parliament under the party’s banner for three terms (1996–2008). Under Pres. John Kufuor, Akufo-Addo served as attorney general and minister of justice from 2001 until 2003. That year he became foreign minister, a position he held until 2007, when he resigned in order to stand in the contest to be the NPP’s flag bearer in the 2008 presidential election; he was elected as the party’s candidate.
In the December 7, 2008, Ghanaian presidential election, President Akufo-Addo won the first round of voting with more than 49 percent of the vote. However, as he did not take the requisite 50 percent plus one, he and his closet challenger, John Evans Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), advanced to a second round, held on December 28. This time Akufo-Addo was narrowly defeated by Mills, taking 49.77 percent of the vote to Mills’s 50.23 percent.
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Akufo-Addo stood for president in the December 7, 2012, election again as the NPP’s candidate. He faced the NDC’s John Mahama, who had succeeded to the presidency earlier that year after Mills’s unexpected death, and six other contenders. Mahama was announced the winner, with 50.7 percent and with Akufo-Addo coming in a very close second with 47.7 percent.
However, Akufo-Addo and the NPP lodged allegations of electoral fraud and challenged the results at the Supreme Court. After several tense months, in August 2013 the Court upheld Mahama’s victory. Akufo-Addo accepted the outcome and urged his supporters to do the same; he was lauded for his response to the ruling, which helped diffuse tensions in the country.
In 2016 Akufo-Addo stood as the NPP presidential candidate for a third time. He again faced Mahama—as well as five other candidates—in the election, which was held on December 7. This time President Akufo-Addo was declared the winner, with about 53.8 percent of the vote, and Mahama, who trailed him with about 44.4 percent, conceded. Akufo-Addo was inaugurated on January 7, 2017.
