Joseph Zaphenat Amenowode is a

Ghanaian Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Tog ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

. He was the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

for Hohoe South and was the Minister for the

Volta Region Volta Region (or Volta) is one of Ghana's sixteen administrative regions, with Ho designated as its capital. It is located west of Republic of Togo and to the east of Lake Volta. Divided into 25 administrative districts, the region is multi-e ...

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in Ghana–Ivory Coast border, the west, Burkina ...

from January 2009 until his dismissal on 6 March 2012. He has worked as a university lecturer prior to going into politics.

Early life in education

Amenowode's family hails from Ve-Deme in the Hohoe Municipal District of the Volta Region. He was born in Accra, the capital of Ghana. He attended the Hohoe Evangelical Presbyterian Secondary School between 1966 and 1971 obtaining the

General Certificate of Education The General Certificate of Education (GCE) is a subject-specific family of academic qualifications used in awarding bodies in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Crown dependencies and a few Commonwealth countries. For some time, the Scottish e ...

(GCE)

Ordinary Level The O-Level (Ordinary Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education. It was introduced in place of the School Certificate in 1951 as part of an educational reform alongside the more in-depth ...

. He proceeded to Kpando Secondary School for his sixth form education, completing the

GCE Advanced Level The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational au ...

in 1973. His undergraduate university education was at the

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology , mottoeng = The knot of wisdom is untied only by the wise , established = 1952;

where he obtained the

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

Honours degree in 1979. He continued for an extra year to complete a postgraduate diploma in 1980. In 1991, he obtained a master's degree from the same university. He attended the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was founded in 1887 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

where he completed a Master of Professional Studies degree in Art Therapy in 1997.

Career

Amenowode initially taught in the

Ghana Education Service The Ghana Education Service (GES) is a government agency under the Ministry of Education responsible for implementing government policies that ensure that Ghanaians of school-going age irrespective of their ethnicity, gender, disability, relig ...

. He later became a lecturer at the

University of Education, Winneba A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

in the Central Region of Ghana. He was the former Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises.

Politics

Joseph Amenowode is a member of the National Democratic Congress. He first stood for elections in the Ghanaian parliamentary election in 2004, winning with a majority of 17,720 (75.6%) and taking his seat in the fourth parliament of the Fourth Republic. He retained his seat in the

2008 election This electoral calendar 2008 lists the national/federal direct elections held in 2008 in the de jure and de facto sovereign states and their dependent territories. Referendums are included, even though they are not elections. By-elections are no ...

. In 2009, he was appointed the Volta Regional Minister by the

President of Ghana The president of the Republic of Ghana is the elected head of state and head of government of Ghana, as well as commander-in-chief of the Ghana Armed Forces. The current president of Ghana is Nana Akufo-Addo, who won the 2020 presidential ele ...

John Atta Mills John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills (21 July 1944 – 24 July 2012) was a Ghanaian politician and legal scholar who served as President of Ghana from 2009 until his death in 2012. He was inaugurated on 7 January 2009, having defeated the governing party ...

, a position he held until he was dropped in a cabinet reshuffle by President Mills in early 2012.

References

External links and sources

Profile on Parliament of Ghana website
Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Government ministers of Ghana Ghanaian MPs 2005–2009 Ghanaian MPs 2009–2013 Ghanaian MPs 2013–2017 University of Education, Winneba faculty Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology alumni Pratt Institute alumni National Democratic Congress (Ghana) politicians {{ghana-politician-stub

Early life in education

Career

Politics

See also

References

External links and sources