John Evans Fifii Atta Mills (born 21 July 1944) is the third and current President of the Fourth Republic of Ghana. He was inaugurated on 7 January 2009, having defeated the ruling party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 election.
He was Vice President from 1997 to 2001 under President Jerry Rawlings, and stood unsuccessfully in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections as the candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Early life, education and academic career
Mills is a Fanti from Ekumfi Otuam in the Central Region of Ghana but was born in Tarkwa, located in the Western Region of Ghana. He was educated at Achimota School, where he completed the Advanced Level Certificate in 1963, and the University of Ghana, Legon, where he received a bachelor's degree and professional certificate in law in 1967.
In 1968, Mills studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and received a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. So began the pattern of the next twenty years of Mills' life, which was largely spent with spells both in Ghana & internationally as an academic. In Mills earned a Ph.D in Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London after completing his doctoral thesis in the area of taxation and economic development.
Career as a lecturer
Mills' first formal teaching assignment was as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana, Legon. He spent close to twenty five years teaching at Legon and other institutions of higher learning, and rose in position from lecturer to senior lecturer to associate professor, and served on numerous boards and committees.
Additionally, he traveled worldwide as a visiting lecturer and professor at educational institutions such as the LSE, and presented research papers at symposiums and conferences In 1971, he was selected for the Fulbright Scholar Program at Stanford Law School in the United States Of America.
At age 27, he was awarded his PhD after successfully defending his doctoral thesis in the area of taxation and economic development. He returned to Ghana that year, becoming a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana. He became a visiting professor of Temple Law School (Philadelphia, USA), with two stints from 1978 to 1979, and 1986 to 1987, and was a visiting professor at Leiden University (Holland) from 1985 to 1986. During this period, he authored several publications relating to taxation during the 1970s & 1980s.
Outside of his academic pursuits, Professor Mills was the Acting Commissioner of Ghana's Internal Revenue Service from 1986 to 1993, and the substantive Commissioner from 1993 to 1996. By 1992, he had become an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Ghana. Mills was also a Fulbright scholar at Stanford Law School.
Vice-President of Ghana
For the inaugural Presidential Elections in 1992, the National Convention Party (NCP) had formed an alliance with the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Former Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) Chairman, and leader of Ghana, Flight-Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings chose the NCP leader, Kow Nkensen Arkaah, as his running-mate for Vice-President. Having been elected in the 1992 elections, Arkaah served between 1992�1996.
However, on 29 January 1996, the NCP broke with the NDC, merging with the People's Convention Party (PCP) to form a rebirth of the Convention People's Party (the formerly outlawed political party of Ghana's first President, Kwame Nkrumah). Thus, in a bitter split, Arkaah would stand as candidate for the reborn CPP in the 1996 Presidential Elections against Rawlings. Rawlings selected Mills for the vacated Vice-Presidency in his bid for re-election to a second term in Ghana's 1996 Presidential Election. Rawlings was re-elected to his second term in office, and Mills became Vice President of Ghana between 1996 to 2000.
Personal life
He is married to Ernestina Naadu Mills, an educator and has a 19 year old son, Sam Kofi Atta Mills with Ruby Addo.
He is a good friend to Pastor T. B. Joshua of The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations in Lagos, Nigeria and regularly visits his church. He said following his inauguration that T.B. Joshua had prophesied to him there would be three elections, the results would be released in January, and he would emerge victorious.
Seeking for the highest office in Ghana
In December of 2002 John Atta Mills was elected by his party to be its flag bearer and lead them into the 2004 elections.[3] In 2000, Mills became the NDC's candidate for the 2000 Presidential Elections after Rawlings had served his constitutionally mandated terms as president. At the time, and after essentially two decades of PNDC/NDC rule, the NDC's war chest for the upcoming elections was certainly much stronger than that of the NPP.
The result would clearly between the NDC's popularity with the people, and Vice-President Mills' track-record alongside President Rawlings, and the veteran political experience that the NPP candidate would bring to the campaign. The main rival for Vice-President Mills' own bid for the Presidency would be against a veteran politician, John Agyekum Kufuor, who was running as the candidate for the New Patriotic Party(NPP). Kufuor was a former Member Of Parliament during the rule of Prime Minister Kofi A. Busia's Progress Party during his period of rule from 1969 to 1971, and served as the Deputy Minister Of Foreign Affairs. He had also been the Deputy Opposition Leader of the Popular Front Party (PFP) during the administration of Hilla Limann in the early 1980s. He had lost out to President Rawlings in the 1996 Presidential Elections, but gained a respectable 39.62% of the popular vote. Ghana's 2000 Presidential Elections went into two rounds. While in the first round, held on the 7th of December 2000, Mills gained 44.8% of the vote, Kufuor won the first round with 48.4%. This result forced the elections into a two-party run-off vote on the 28th of December 2000, where Kufuor crushed Vice-President Mills with a result of 56.9% of the vote. The NPP had won the election, and Kufuor was sworn in as President Of Ghana on the 7th of January 2001.
In 2002, former Vice-President Mills was again selected as the candidate for the upcoming Presidential Elections in 2004. With President Kufuor's professional statesmanship evident, and Ghana beginning to show strong economical growth & attracting foreign investment, before votes were even cast, the result was largely being seen as a forgone conclusion. Subsequently, President Kufuor comfortably won the 2004 Presidential Elections by a margin of 52.45%, winning re-election in the first round of voting, and gaining even more parliamentary seats.
It was almost without surprise that on the 21st of December 2006, that former Vice-President Mills became the NDC's candidate for the 2008 Presidential Elections, winning his party's ticket by a staggering 81.4% result. However, while NDC seemed to only have one serious candidate, the ruling NPP had two main contenders, Nana Akufo-Addo & John Alan Kyeremanten. Nana Akufo-Addo was the son of former President Edward Akufo-Addo (1969-1971), and former member of 'The Big Six', who were the pioneers of independence from Britain.
Nana Akufo-Addo was an Oxford-educated barrister, and had served in the Kufuor administration as Attorney-General & Minister Of Justice from 2001 to 2003, and Foreign Minister thereafter. John Alan Kyeremanten, more commonly referred to as Alan Cash, is a lawyer & businessman, as well as a former Ghana Ambassador to the United States Of America, and held several posts under the Kufuor administration, notably as the Minister Of Trade & Industry.
Eventually, the NPP candidate became Nana Akufo-Addo, who won the most votes, but failed to get an outright result as preferred candidate. Nonetheless, as runner-up, Kyeremanten conceded defeat, and threw his support behind Nana Akufo-Addo as the NPP flagbearer. The campaign for the 2008 Ghana Presidential Elections was hard-fought. While the NPP pointed to their history of economic management, NDC pointed to issues such as corruption, and misappropriation of government funds.
In the end, Ghanaians would be compelled to vote on how they compared the performance on the NDC's performance in government between 1992�2000, with NPP's performance in government between 2001�2009. Although the elections would be viewed as largely peaceful, clashes did occur between NDC & NPP supporters, who were both as passionate as ever. Early polls showed that Mills was the favourite, but in another poll taken just months before the first-round voting, Nana Akufo-Addo emerged as the favourite. Election campaigning was strong, particularly with advertising, which was clearly much heavier with the NPP candidate. The first round of voting occurred on 7 December 2008. In a very close result amongst all parties, Nana Akufo-Addo's NPP finished with 49.13% of the vote, painfully close to the outright margin required to win in the first round, while Mills' NDC finished with 47.92%.
The other parties garnered only 2.37% of the votes.
The result forced a second-round of voting between NPP & NDC on the 28th of December 2008. The result was a slim margin held by Mills, but due to problems with the distribution of ballots, the Tain constituency, located in the Brong-Ahafo Region, was forced to re-run its voting on the 2nd of January 2009. The voting in the Tain constituency led to a landslide victory to the NDC. For several days, the Electoral Commission of Ghana did not call the result to the NDC, and the NPP filed a lawsuit, claiming that "the atmosphere in the rural district was not conducive to a free and fair election".
Eventually, the NPP bowed to the inevitable, and on the morning of 3 January 2009, the election result was finally called. Former Vice-President John Atta-Mills, who had failed to win in two previous campaigns, had won the 2008 Presidential Election, becoming the 3rd President of the 4th Republic Of Ghana.
Publications
Mills has produced several publications, including:
Taxation of Periodical or Deferred Payments arising from the Sale of Fixed Capital (1974)
Exemption of Dividends from Income taxation: A critical Appraisal (1977) In: Review of Ghana Law, 1997, 9: 1, p. 38�47
Report of the Tax Review Commission, Ghana, parts 1�3 (1977)
Ghana's Income Tax laws and the Investor. (An inter-faculty lecture published by the University of Ghana)
Ghana's new investment code : an appraisal (1993) In: University of Ghana Law Journal, 1993, vol. 18, p. 1�29
He has held examiner positions with finance-related institutions in Ghana, including the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Institute of Bankers, and Ghana Tax Review Commission.
Contribution in sports
He has contributed to the Ghana Hockey Association, National Sports Council of Ghana, and Accra Hearts of Oak Sporting Club. He enjoys hockey and swimming, and once played for the national hockey team (he is still a member of the Veterans Hockey Team).
Presidency
On 21 December 2006, Mills was overwhelmingly elected by the NDC as its candidate for the 2008 presidential election with a majority of 81.4% (1,362 votes), far ahead of his opponents, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu, and Eddie Annan. In 2008, he was elected president of Ghana, after a keenly contested three round election.
Other activities and projects
Mills has been involved in various activities and projects such as:
Member of the Ghana Stock Exchange Council
Board of Trustees, Mines Trust
Management Committee Member of, Commonwealth Administration of Tax Experts, United Nations Ad Hoc Group of Experts in International Cooperation in Tax Matters, and United Nations Law and Population Project.
A Study on Equipment Leasing in Ghana
Casebook preparation on Ghana's Income Tax
Review of Ghana's Double Tax Agreement with the UK
In 1988, John Evans Atta Mills became the acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service of Ghana and named Commissioner in September 1996.
In 1997, Prof. Mills received another important appointment when on January 7, 1997, he was sworn-in as the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana.
In 2002, Prof. Mills was a visiting scholar at the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Canada.
In December 2002, John Evans Atta Mills was elected by his party to be its flagbearer and led them into the 2004 elections.
Source: Peacefmonline.com credit Wikipedia
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