Background
He was born on October 9, 1912, into a tamous Cape Coast family.
He was born on October 9, 1912, into a tamous Cape Coast family.
Educated at a Wesleyan primary school and Mfantsipim Secondary, before going to the engineering school at Achimota and doing postgraduate courses in engineering at Derby and Cambridge.
De Graft-Johnson practised as an engineer in Ghana. He was also a lecturer at the Buildings and Roads Research Institute of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology at Kumasi. He later became the director. He was also one of the founding members of the Ghana Institute of Engineers (GhIE). He was the President of the GhIE from 1977 to 1978.
He died on April 22, 1999 in London at the age of 65.
During the era of military rule under the Supreme Military Council, he was involved in opposition to continued military rule as he was then President of the GhIE, one of many professional bodies in Ghana opposing the military government. He suffered personal attacks because of this. De Graft-Johnson joined the People's National Party (PNP) when it was founded in 1979. This was after the ban on political parties imposed in 1972 by the National Redemption Council was lifted. The PNP won the elections and he became the first ever Vice President of Ghana in the Limann government. The government was overthrown by coup d'état on 31 December 1981. He left for exile in London, England after the coup.