Background
Ekow Arkaah was born on July 14, 1927 at Senya Breku in the Central Region of the Gold Coast (now Ghana).
Ekow Arkaah was born on July 14, 1927 at Senya Breku in the Central Region of the Gold Coast (now Ghana).
He attended Mfantsipim School between 1941 and 1946, then the Achimota School, the predecessor of the University of Ghana. He then attended Harvard University where he obtained an Master of Business Administration between 1952 and 1954.
He was also a chief of Senya Breku. He proceeded to the United States of America where he obtained his first degree at Tufts College. Arkaah was an Assistant Sales Manager of Secony Oil Corporation of New New York
He later returned to his homeland.
From 1954 to 1957, Arkaah worked as a Marketing Executive of the Mobil Oil Ghana Limited. Foreign the next ten years up to 1968, Mr.
Arkaah worked with the civil service, rising to become Principal Secretary between 1966 and 1968. Arkaah was also the head of the Ghana National Trading Corporation (GNTC), a huge national trading franchise at the time, the now defunct Ghana Airways Airline and the Ghana National Procurement Agency.
He has also worked as a consultant in the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia and Ethiopia.
Arkaah became the leader of the National Convention Party (NCP) prior to the 1992 Ghanaian presidential elections. As part of the deal, Ekow Arkaah got to be the Vice Presidential candidate on Rawlings" ticket. Rawlings and Arkaah had a difficult working relationship throughout their four-year term.
The highpoint was an alleged punch up between Rawlings and Arkaah at a cabinet meeting on December 28, 1995.
Jerry Rawlings at least alluded that there had been some form of misunderstanding. Arkaah styled himself the "stubborn cat" after that incident.
Arkaah became the leader of the Convention People"s Party formed by the merger of the NCP and the People"s Convention Party. The merger was announced on January 29, 1996.
Arkaah, who continued as Vice President of Ghana, stood against his own government in the 1996 Ghanaian presidential elections and lost.
He was replaced in the Rawlings government by Professor John Atta Mills, a law lecturer, as Rawlings" deputy. Arkaah was involved in a road traffic accident at Cantonments in Accra. He died in the Atlanta, United States of America on April 25, 2001, from his injuries.
His party formed an alliance with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of Jerry Rawlings and Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere (EGLE).
