Mahamudu Bawumia

Mahamudu Bawumia (born 7 October 1963) is a Ghanaian economist and former central banker who serves as the 5th Vice President of Ghana in the 4th Ghanaian Republic.

Bawumia was born on Monday, 7 October 1963 in Tamale, Ghana to Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia and Hajia Mariama Bawumia.

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 (ACIB).

He was President of the Ghana United Nations Students’ Association (GUNSA) in 1981.

He took a First Class Honours Degree in Economics at Buckingham University in 1987.

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, D.C. Bawumia also previously served as Resident Representative of the African Development Bank in Zimbabwe.

He served as chairman of the Council of State, under the presidency of J. J. Rawlings from, 1993 to 2000 in the 4th republic.

In September 2021, his mother, Hajia Mariama Bawumia, died in Accra, at age 81, and was buried later beside her husband in Kperiga, near Walewale in the Northeast Region.

Born into a large family, Mahamudu Bawumia is the twelfth of his father's 18 children and the second of his mother's five.

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.

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.

Alhaji Bawumia was awarded the high national honour of Member of the Order of the Star of Ghana in March 1999.

He was listed in "Who is Who Among America's Teachers' in 1999. He has also published two books on monetary policy and economic development.

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.

Bawumia's father, Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia was a teacher, lawyer and politician, a Mamprugu Royal and Chief of the Kperiga 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.

The Northern Peoples Party, together with the National Liberation Movement and other opposition political parties, later merged into the United Party, the forebear 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.

The NPP increased its share of the vote compared to 2004 in all the three Northern Regions, in both the first and second round.

President John Kufuor appointed Bawumia as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana in June 2006.

At the Bank of Ghana, Mahamudu Bawumia:

Bawumia was a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, until his nomination as the vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2008, standing alongside presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo.

Shortly after the 2008 election Bawumia resigned as Deputy Governor at the Bank of Ghana.

Mahamudu Bawumia was running mate to the New Patriotic Party candidate in the 2008 elections, Nana Akufo-Addo.

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 (IGC), 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 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 with whom they have four children.

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.

He assumed office on 7th January 2017 as Vice President of Ghana.

Mahamudu Bawumia is an economist, banker, and vice president of Ghana.