Who is Prof Adu Boahen, Charles Adu Boahen’s father?

Former Minister of State in charge of finance’s alleged actions in the ‘Galamsey Economy’ exposé by investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, is said to have been an embarrassment to his family particularly his father, Prof Albert Adu Boahen.

Speaking during his appearance at the ad hoc committee hearing on a vote of censure motion against him, on Friday, November 11, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said that the entrapment of Charles Adu Boahen is one of the reasons why these past few days have been difficult for him.

He bemoaned the set-up of Adu Boahen, whose father, he said is responsible for the establishment of the 4th Republic of Ghana.

“… on Tuesday, Prof Adu Boahen’s son was also entrapped with something. And you will see a gentleman whose father is responsible for our being here because he broke the culture of silence. And that then resulted in the 1st Republic that we are all enjoying,” he said.

But who exactly is the late Prof Albert Prof Adu Boahen?

Prof Adu Boahen was the first presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the first election of the 4th Republic of Ghana in 1992. Even though Prof Adu Boahen could not win the elections against the NDC candidate Jerry John Rawlings, many have credited him for the democratisation of Ghana and many other West African countries.

In February 1988, he publicly lectured on the history of Ghana from 1972 to 1987 which led to him being credited with breaking the so-called “culture of silence” which marked the regime of President Jerry Rawlings.

Prof Adu Boahen led the NPP to boycott the 1992 parliamentary election after he alleged that the presidential election against Rawlings, for which he got 39.6 percent, was rigged. He tried again to be the flagbearer of the NPP in 1998, for the 2000 presidential election but lost to former President John Agyekum Kufuor.

He died on May 24, 2006, exactly 74 years after he was born (May 24, 1932).

Educational background of Prof Adu Boahen:

Prof Boahen was educated at Mfantsipim School and the University of Ghana before being awarded his Ph.D. at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, as the first Ghanaian.

He returned to the University of Ghana to lecture in the Department of History and in 1987, he became Associate Professor and Head of the Department.

Boahen became a Professor of History at the University of Ghana and taught at Columbia and Johns Hopkins universities, among others.

Academic achievement of Prof Adu Boahen:

Albert A. Adu Boahen is an Emeritus Professor at the Department of History, University of Ghana. He is Ghana’s most renowned historian, also noted for both his political activism and international role as a visiting professor to universities throughout the world, and as a consultant to UNESCO.

Amongst his many books and papers on modern and colonial history, he is the author of the monographs Mfantsipim and the Making of Ghana: A Centenary History 1876-1976, for which he won the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa in 1997. He was also editor of UNESCO’s eight-volume History of Africa series.

He won the prestigious Noma Award in 1997 which comes with a $10,000 prize for outstanding African writers and scholars who published in Africa.

Publication

Africa in the Twentieth Century: The Adu Boahen Reader [Academic Literature, Africa World Press, 2004]

Yaa Asantewaa and the Asante-British War of 1900-1 [Academic Literature, James Currey, 2003]

Mfantsipim and the making of Ghana: A centenary history 1876-1976 [Academic Literature, Sankofa, 1996]

Africa Under Colonial Domination, 1880-1935 (General History of Africa, Vol 7)(Paperback – July 1990)

African Perspectives on Colonialism (Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History, No 15)(Paperback – November 1989)

Revolutionary Years: West Africa Since 1800 with James Bertin Webster (Textbook Binding – February 1981)

The Ghanaian Sphinx: reflections on the contemporary history of Ghana, 1972-1987