• Former Baylor business professor re-elected vice president of Ghana

    Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia

    More than 20 years ago, a Baylor economics professor delivered an open lecture for the campus community entitled “The Economy and Political Change in Ghana.” It was a speech that proved to foreshadow the future; this month, that professor — Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia — begins his second term as vice president of Ghana.

    Bawumia, born the 12th of 18 children in Ghana, spent four years as an economics professor in Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business from 1996-2000 and quickly established a reputation as a popular professor and scholar. In 1998, he won the Hankamer Young Researcher Award; that same year, he authored a chapter in a comparative economics textbook. But heeding the call to put his expertise into action for his home country, Bawumia left Baylor in 2000 to work for the Bank of Ghana.

    Since that time, Bawumia has served in various banking roles in both Ghana and Zimbabwe, eventually finding his way into politics. He was the New Patriotic Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012, but his party lost each election. In between, he served as a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia and as a senior research associate at Oxford.

    In 2016, he was again named the NPP’s vice-presidential candidate, and this time, the ticket (led by presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo) won the election, winning 54% of the vote to beat the incumbent president. Akufo-Addo and Bawumia were re-elected last fall, and began their second terms earlier this month.

    Sic ’em, Vice-President Bawumia!

    [updated Jan. 13, 2021]