John Mahama

John Dramani Mahama is a Ghanaian politician who served as President of Ghana from July 24, 2012, to January 7, 2017, after previously serving as Vice President of Ghana from January 2009 to July 2012 before taking office as president on 24 July 2012 following the demise of his predecessor, John Atta Mills.

He was elected after December 2012 election to serve as full-time President. He contested re-election for a second term in 2016 but lost to the New Patriotic Party’s candidate Nana Akufo-Addo. This made him the first President in the history of Ghana to not have won a second term.

John Mahama was born on November 29, 1958 (age 62 years), in Damongo, the capital of the West Gonja district.

Mahama is a communication expert, historian, and writer. He was a Member of Parliament for Bole Bamboi from 1997 to 2009 and served as Minister of Communications from 1998 to 2001. He is a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

As a member of the Gonja ethnic group, Mahama hails from Bole in the Northern Region. He was born in Damongo in the Damango-Daboya constituency of the Northern region into a political tradition dating back to the country’s First Republic.

His father, Emmanuel Adama Mahama, a wealthy rice farmer and teacher, was the first Member of Parliament for the West Gonja constituency and the first Regional Commissioner of the Northern Region during the First Republic under Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah.

Mahama’s father also served as a senior presidential advisor during Ghana’s Third Republic under Dr. Hilla Limann who was overthrown in 1981 by Jerry Rawlings.

Mahama had his primary education at the Accra Newtown Experimental School (ANT1) and Achimota School before completing secondary school at Ghana Secondary School (Tamale, Northern region).

He proceeded to the University of Ghana, Legon, receiving a bachelor’s degree in history in 1981 and a postgraduate diploma in communication studies in 1986. As a student, he was a member of Commonwealth Hall (Legon).

He also studied at the Institute of Social Sciences in Moscow in the Soviet Union, specializing in social psychology; he obtained a postgraduate degree in 1988.

Mahama is the first vice president to take over the presidency from the death of his predecessor and is the first head of state of Ghana to have been born after Ghana’s independence.

John Mahama’s Family

Former President Mahama is married to Mrs. Lordina Mahama in 1992 and together they have five children.