Albert Adu Boahen

Albert Kwadwo Adu Boahen (24 May 1932 – 24 May 2006) was a Ghanaian academic, historian, and politician. He was an academic at the University of Ghana from 1959 to 1990, from 1971 onwards as a professor. As a politician, he notably was a candidate in the 1992 Ghanaian presidential election, representing the main opposition New Patriotic Party.

Career

Academia Boahen was born in Oseim to Presbyterian parents and had his ancestral roots in Juaben in the Ashanti Region. He attended religious schools between 1938 and 1947. He went to Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast before going to the University College of the Gold Coast, now University of Ghana, Legon, to study history. He graduated in 1956. In 1959 he was the first Ghanaian to receive a Ph.D. in African history from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

He was employed at the University of Ghana in 1959, and was a professor from 1971 to his retirement in 1990. He chaired the Department of History there from 1967 to 1975,

Professor Adu Boahen also served on the editorial board of The Journal of African History published by Cambridge University Press, Boahen lost to Jerry Rawlings, Due to dissatisfaction with alleged ballot rigging in that election, Boahen boycotted the 1992 parliamentary election. In 1998, Boahen tried to return as the New Patriotic Party's presidential nominee, but Kufour was chosen instead. Ultimately, Kufour won the 2000 presidential election and became president. His roots can be traced down to Osiem, a village in the Eastern Region of Ghana where his place of residence has been given the area council building.

His son Charles Adu Boahen, a former Wall Street investment banker and finance professional, was appointed deputy minister of finance in Ghana in 2017 by President Nana Addo Akufo-Addo. Charles served in the Akufo-Addo government for 5 years before he was removed from the position for allegations of corruption following the release of sting undercover video by the controversial Ghanaian investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas. He was subsequently cleared of those charges after an investigation by Ghana's Office of the Special Prosecutor. Another son of his, Kwabena Boahen is a well respected Professor of Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering at the prestigious Stanford University in California, USA. He founded the Brains in Silicon Lab at Stanford, pursuing a long held interest in neural networks and neuromorphic engineering.

Partial bibliography Britain, the Sahara and the Western Sudan 1788–1861. London/Oxford, 1964 (dissertation). Topics in West African History. Harlow/London, 1966. Ghana: Evolution and Change in the 19th and 20th Centuries. London, 1975. The Revolutionary Years: West Africa Since 1800. Accra/London, 1975. "Politics in Ghana, 1800–1874", in J. F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder, History of West Africa. London, 1977 (3rd edition), Vol. 2, pp. 167–260. African Perspectives on Colonialism. Baltimore, 1987. The Ghanaian Sphinx: Reflections on the Contemporary History of Ghana, 1972–1987. Accra, 1989. Mfantsipim and the making of Ghana: A Centenary History, 1876–1976. Accra, 1996. Yaa Asantewaa and the Asante–British War of 1900–1. Accra, 2003. Africa in the Twentieth Century: The Adu Boahen Reader. Trenton, NJ, 2005. With J. B. Webster and H. O. Idowu: The Revolutionary Years: West Africa since 1800. London, 1980.