Mahamudu Bawumia


Mahamudu Bawumia is a Ghanaian economist and banker and the current Vice President of Ghana. He assumed office on 7 January 2017.
Bawumia was a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana until his nomination as the vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party in 2008, standing alongside presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo. He also ran as the NPP vice-presidential candidate in the 2012 general elections and was the lead witness for the petitioners in the 2012/2013 Presidential Election Petition which challenged the declaration of John Mahama as winner of the election. He is married to Samira Ramadan and has four children.

Parents

Bawumia was born on October 7, 1963, in Tamale to Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia and Hajia Mariama Bawumia.
Bawumia's father, Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia was a teacher, lawyer and politician, a Mamprugu Royal and Chief of the Kpariga Traditional Area at the time of his death in September 2002. He was a founding member of the Northern Peoples' Party alongside Chief S. D. Dombo, Chief Abeifa Karbo, Yakubu Tali, the Tolon Naa, and J. A. Braimah, Kabachewura. He served as Chairman of the Council of State from 1992 to 2000.
The Northern Peoples Party, together with the National Liberation Movement and other opposition political parties, later merged into the United Party, the forebearer of the current New Patriotic Party.
Alhaji Bawumia served under various Ghanaian governments in various capacities, including member of the Northern Territories Council, the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly, a Member of Parliament of the First Republic, Northern Regional Minister, and Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Alhaji Bawumia was awarded the highest national honour, membership of the Order of the Star of Ghana in March 1999. He served as the Chairman of the council of State under the NDC government during the 4th republic under President J. J. Rawlings.

Early life and education

Born into a large family, Mahamudu Bawumia was the twelfth of his father's 18 children and the second of his mother's five.
Mahamudu Bawumia attended the Sakasaka Primary school in Tamale, and gained admission to Tamale Secondary School in 1975. After graduating from Tamale Secondary School, he went to the United Kingdom where he studied banking and obtained the Chartered Institute of Bankers Diploma. He was President of the Ghana United Nations Students’ Association for 1981. He took a First Class Honours Degree in Economics at Buckingham University in 1987.
He then obtained a master's degree in Economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, and obtained a Ph.D. in Economics at the Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1995. His areas of specialization include Macroeconomics, International Economics, Development Economics and Monetary Policy. He has numerous publications.

Career

From 1988 to 1990, 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.
Between 1996 and 2000, Bawumia served as an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, USA, where he also received the Young Researcher Award in 1998. He was listed in "Who is Who Among America's Teachers' in 1999.
Bawumia 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. President John Kufuor appointed Bawumia as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana in June 2006.
At the Bank of Ghana Bawumia :
Shortly after the 2008 election Bawumia resigned as Deputy Governor at the Bank of Ghana.

2008 elections

Mahamudu Bawumia was running mate to the New Patriotic Party candidate in the 2008 elections, Nana Akufo-Addo. The NPP increased its share of the vote compared to 2004 in all the three Northern Regions, in both the first and second round.

2008–2011

Bawumia served as a consultant to the Economic Commission of Africa between February and March 2009. Between April and 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, 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 also served as an advisor to the Central Bank of Sierra Leone on the redesigning of the organizational structure of the bank and its monetary policy framework.
Between October 2009 and October 2010, he was a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of African Economies at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. In January 2011, Bawumia was appointed Resident Representative of the African Development Bank for Zimbabwe by the African Development Bank. He served in this position until reappointed as the Vice-Presidential Candidate to Nana Akufo-Addo on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party for Ghana's 2012 Presidential Election.

2012 elections

Bawumia was re-nominated as the Vice-Presidential Candidate to Nana Akufo-Addo for the 2012 General Elections in March 2012. The party won 10 seats in the Northern Region including 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. Overall, Nana Akufo-Addo and Bawumia lost the presidential elections to John Dramani Mahama.

2016 elections

Nana Akuffo Addo appointed Bawumia as his running mate in the 2016 presidential election.

Other activities