From political outsider to Ghana’s ‘Mr Digital’

Mahamudu Bawumia rose from political outsider to Ghana’s second in office – and in December he made history as the country’s first Muslim president.

Bawumia, currently the vice president of Ghana, has been selected by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) as their candidate for the upcoming national elections.

The 61-year-old Tottenham Hotspur fan has quite the reputation.

An Oxford University-educated professional, he is unrecognizable except for his signature small, rectangular glasses and has been dubbed “Mr Digital” for his promise to beat Ghana to a technological heavyweight.

But because he is the head of the government’s economic management team, many Ghanaians associate Bawumia with the punitive cost of living crisis they are facing.

If Bawumia overcomes criticism and wins the election, he will succeed his current boss President Nana Akufo-Addo, who is nearing the end of his two-term term.

“Mr Digital” entered politics in 2008, sparking anger and skepticism.

Bawumia was a 44-year-old who had never held public office, yet Akufo-Addo – then a presidential candidate – had chosen him as his running mate.

Bawumia’s father Alhaji had served in Ghana’s early governments after the country gained independence from Britain in 1957, working closely with respected Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah.

But the younger Bawumia had carved out a career for himself in economics and banking – serving as deputy governor of the central bank of Ghana.

To many analysts and NPP insiders, it made no sense that Akufo-Addo chose Bawumia over veteran party members.

Akufo-Addo ended up losing the election to John Atta Mills from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) by a narrow margin.

Bawumia lost his job as VP – but his campaign of love silenced his naysayers.

“He shot [up] NPP campaign. I think no one else could have done a better job than this, to be honest, with his support for the NPP,” Ghanaian political scientist Dr Clement Sefa-Nyarko told the BBC.

Akufo-Addo and Bawumia allowed elections in 2012. They were defeated again.

The NPP challenged the election results at the High Court, choosing Bawumia as its lead witness.

During the trial, which was televised on national television, Bawumia found himself sane and unfazed by the interminable cross-examination that lasted for days.

“How were the people, who is this?” He is the person who should be focused on,” said Dr. Sefa-Nyarko, who teaches African leadership at King’s College London.

Akufo-Addo decided to keep Bawumia on his ticket and in 2016, when they took office for the third time, the NPP won with 51.3% of the votes. Bawumia eventually became the vice president.

Bawumia’s journey to the top began in 1963, when he was born into a large family in the northern town of Tamale.

He was the 12th of his father’s 18 children.

After completing primary and secondary school in Ghana, Bawumia moved to the UK for undergraduate studies and went on to obtain a master’s degree in economics from the prestigious University of Oxford.

To support himself during his studies, he got a job as a taxi driver and cleaner.

He returned to Ghana in 2000 to work in a central bank, where he worked his way up to become a deputy manager.

Bawumia campaigned for this economic knowledge when he was trying to become VP. Therefore, he faced a lot of criticism when Ghana went into a serious economic crisis in the years under his watch.

Inflation reached a record 54% in December 2022 and the country was forced to take out a $3bn (£2.3bn) loan from the International Monetary Fund after the government’s debt soared.

Responding to this criticism, Bawumia said that the economic management team he leads does not have the “power to make decisions” and only gives advice to the government.

But for many, this was not good enough.

“Ethically, in terms of integrity, people began to wonder: ‘What is this? How did it end here? We thought he was the best person, and look where we ended up, “Franklin Cudjoe. , a Ghanaian political analyst and head of the Imani Center for Policy and Education, told the BBC.

Along with his role as an economist, Bawumia has also built a reputation for being a digital visionary.

Ghana’s digital ecosystem has seen “tremendous growth” especially in areas such as mobile communications, Charles Abani, head of the United Nations mission in Ghana, noted last month.

This “amazing digital transformation” was “led” by Bawumia, a news website African business reports, while a Ghanaian newspaper The Chronicle it praised “Bawumia’s expertise in global digital transformation”.

Bawumia said he initiated a partnership between the Ghanaian government and the American company Zipline, which led to the creation of the world’s largest vaccine delivery network.

He said he reached out to Zipline, which uses small planes to fly health products to hard-to-reach clinics, after his father died of blood loss.

While this love of technology is celebrated by some, others are very skeptical.

Mr. Cudjoe said Bawumia was campaigning for digitalization rather than facing debates about the government’s management of the economy.

Whether Bawumia was in charge or not, digitization should have happened in this country because we had already started it,” said Mr Cudjoe.

Dr Sefa-Nyarko said of Bawumia: “He has been very successful in pushing and claiming all the credit for the digital results of the current government.”

Bawumia’s personal life has dominated his presidential campaign. His wife of 20 years, Samira, was a beauty queen who was loved for her beautiful clothes.

The Second Lady is also vocal when it comes to party politics – and has started campaigning for the NPP.

The couple has four children together. They are proud followers of Islam – a religion practiced by almost one in five Ghanaians.

Most people in Ghana are Christians but there is not much evidence that leaving the religious group will affect Bawumia’s chances in the elections, said Dr Sefa-Nyarko.

The NPP has given its “full support” to Bawumia’s candidacy, “regardless of his Muslim faith”, Dr Sefa-Nyarko added.

“This can translate into widespread support across the country.”

Bawumia’s identity may have a greater effect than his religion. The vice president hails from northern Ghana, one of the strongest political centers of the NDC.

By choosing Bawumia as its presidential candidate, the NPP will be hoping to make inroads in the north, while retaining support in its southern base.

Baumia has been traveling north, south, east and west in what he calls the “opportunity bus”, a green and red campaign vehicle emblazoned with the slogan “possible”.

To some, he is dealing with economic mismanagement, but the vice president maintains the optimism he had when he was 44 when he began an eight-year campaign to become president.

“I have the courage to accept when things don’t go the way I planned,” he told voters in his manifesto.

“But I also have a sense of opportunity, and faith in ourselves, that we can rise up and achieve great things in our lives.”

Additional reporting by the BBC’s Thomas Naadi in Accra