By Edward Acquah
Accra, Nov. 26, GNA – Ghana’s Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has taken a bold step to lead the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to victory in the 2024 General Election with an agenda to deliver “bold solutions for the future.”
With the mantra “It is possible,” the two-term Vice President is seeking to succeed his boss, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the man who “snatched” him from the banking industry into mainstream politics in 2008.
Dr Bawumia, an economist and astute banker, countenanced a rocky start to his political career as running mate to Nana Akufo-Addo after two consecutive defeats in 2008 and 2012. With perseverance and dedication, his resilience was rewarded with landslide victory in 2016.
The Akufo-Addo-Bawumia ticket passed the first test and received a second nod to the Presidency in 2020.
Today, he seeks to chart a new path with his own vision for Ghana, as he expresses in his appeal to voters, with keen focus on digitalising Ghana’s economy to drive the transformation of the economy and create sustainable jobs.
If successful, Dr Bawumia, 61, would become the first vice president to directly ascend to the presidency on the ticket of the NPP.
Early Life
Dr Bawumia was born into a large family, being the 12th of his father’s 18 children and the second of his mother’s five children.
His father was a teacher, lawyer and politician and a Mamprugu Royal and Paramount Chief of Kperiga in the Northern Region.
Dr Bawumia is married to Samira Ramadan, the only daughter of Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan, the former People’s National Convention (PNC) National Chairman. Dr Bawumia and Samira have four children.
Educational Background
Dr Bawumia began his basic education at the Sakasaka Primary School in Tamale and gained admission to Tamale Secondary School in 1975.
He was President of the Ghana United Nations Students Association (GUNSA) in 1981. After his second cycle education, he went to the United Kingdom
to study banking and obtained the Chartered Institute of Bankers Diploma (ACIB).
He obtained a First-Class Honours in Economics from the Buckingham University in 1987. He then obtained a master’s degree in economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, and a Ph.D. in Economics at the Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1995. His areas of specialisation include Macroeconomics, International Economics, Development Economics and Monetary Policy.
Work Experience
From 1988 to 1990, Dr Bawumia worked as a lecturer in Monetary Economics and International Finance at the Emile Woolf College of Accountancy in London, England. He also served as an
economist at the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, USA.
From 1996 to 2000, he served as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, Texas, USA, where he received the Young Researcher Award in 1998.
He returned to Ghana in 2000 to work as an economist at the Bank of Ghana. He rose from Senior Economist to Head of Department, and subsequently as Special Assistant to the Governor of the Bank. In June 2006, President J.A. Kufuor appointed him as a Deputy Governor of the Bank.
Career 2008-2011
Dr Bawumia served as a Consultant to the Economic Commission of Africa from February to March 2009. From April to October 2009, he was a Visiting Scholar at the University of British Columbia Liu Centre for Global Studies and UBC Fisheries Centre.
In October 2009, he was appointed as a Fellow of the International Growth Centre (IGC), a research institute based jointly at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Oxford University, that provides advice on economic growth to governments of developing countries, specifically serving as an IGC Team Member for Sierra Leone.
He served as an Advisor to the Central Bank of Sierra Leone on the redesigning of the organisational structure of the Bank and its monetary policy framework. In January 2010, the African Development Bank appointed Dr Bawumia as its representative for Zimbabwe, a position he held until his reappointment as the vice-presidential candidate to Nana Akufo-Addo for the 2012 presidential election.
Introduction to politics
Dr Bawumia was selected by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as his running mate in the 2008 elections.
He was re-nominated in March 2012 as the vice-presidential candidate to partner Nana Akufo-Addo for the 2012 elections. The Party won 10 seats in the Northern Region; Yendi, Walewale, Yagaba – Kubore, Bunkpurugu, Bimbilla, Chereponi, Kpandai, Tatale–Sanguli, Tolon and Zabzugu.
It also won the Nabdam and Talensi constituencies in the Upper East Region although the presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, lost the presidential elections to the incumbent John Dramani Mahama.
However, in the 2016 elections, the NPP emerged victorious and took five parliamentary seats in the Upper West Region for the first time with a significant increase in its presidential votes in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.
Dr Bawumia was nominated for the fourth time as the running mate of the NPP Flag bearer, President Nana Akufo-Addo for the 2020 Election. The ticket secured a second term.
In November 2023, he was chosen as Flag bearer for the NPP after securing with 61.43 per cent of the total votes cast by delegates.
Key role in Government
Dr Bawumia heads the Government’s Economic Management Team (EMT), which oversees the macroeconomic management of the country.
Over the past seven years, he has championed the Government’s digitisation agenda, leading to the digitalisation of various public institutions. These include the National Property and Digital Addressing System.
He was instrumental in implementing the Triangular Mobile Money Interoperability Payment System.
Dr Bawumia spearheaded the “Gold for Oil” programme that enabled oil marketing companies to purchase crude oil on the world market exchanging gold for oil.
The Vice President was instrumental in the Bank of Ghana’s Gold Purchase Agreement, which enabled the Central Bank to buy 30 per cent of gold produced locally by gold mining companies to shore up the country’s gold reserves.
In less than two weeks, the fate of Dr Bawumia would be decided by Ghanaian voters in an anticipated keen contest. His dream is to break the eight-year cycle that has haunted the two major political parties since 1992.
It will be an uphill task but “it is possible” in his own words.
GNA