Samuel Awuku Okudzeto (born ) 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 and lawyer. In 2011, he was chair of the International Advisory Commission of the

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) is an independent, non-partisan and nonprofit international non-governmental organisation which works towards the practical realisation of human rights in the countries of the Commonwealth. C ...

and a member of the

Commonwealth Lawyers Association The Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) is an organisation of lawyers, law societies and bar associations across the Commonwealth of Nations. The association hosts a conference in a member nation of the commonwealth biennially. History ...

. He is a former Member of Parliament in Ghana.

Early years

Sam Okudzeto was his mother's ninth child, in a polygamous family. When he was three his mother separated from his father and they went to

Mafi Kumasi Mafi-Kumase is a town in the Volta Region of Ghana. It is located in the Central Tongu District. According to the Ghana Statistical Service's 2010 Population and Housing Census, the population of Mafi-Kumase was 2,461. The town is known for the ...

in 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 ...

. At the age of ten he went to stay with his father at Adidome, where he attended the Presbyterian School. His father was a UTC shopkeeper, After the 1948 Christiansborg Cross-Roads shooting, soldiers looted most of the European shops, and also his father's shop. The family moved to Atorkor in Anlo, and Okudzeto attended Zion College at

Anloga Anloga, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is a town in Keta Municipal District, Keta District of the Volta Region in southeast Ghana. It lies east of the Volta River and just south of th ...

Career

After completing his secondary education he taught at the Adidome E.P. Middle School,

and then at Somanya Universal Commercial College. Okudzeto moved to Accra, where he worked for almost a year as a clerk with the Electricity Department. He then studied secretarial accountancy at the Leeds College of Commerce in England. From there he went on to King's College London where he studied law, graduating with lower second-class honours on July 9, 1963. Returning to Ghana, at the end of 1963 he became a lawyer with the firm of Law Chambers. When Law Chambers was disbanded in 1971 he set up his own law firm. During the Second Republic he was one of the founders of the

National Alliance of Liberals The National Alliance of Liberals (NAL) was a political party in Ghana during the Second Republic (1969–1972). The party was formed after the ban on party politics was lifted in May 1969 and was dissolved along with all other political pa ...

, led by

Komla Agbeli Gbedemah Komla Agbeli Gbedemah (17 June 1913 – 11 July 1998) was a Ghanaian politician and Minister for Finance in Ghana's Nkrumah government between 1954 and 1961. Known popularly as "Afro Gbede", he was an indigene of Anyako in the Volta Region of Gh ...

, and was elected as a Member of Parliament. He has served as chair of the Public Accounts Committee and president of the

Ghana Bar Association The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) is a professional association of lawyers in Ghana, including what used to be called solicitors and barristers but are now called legal practitioners, as well as magistrates. By convention all lawyers admitted to pr ...

. He has also served on The Legal Aid Committee, Prisons Service Council, General Legal Council and Judicial Council. As of June 2007, Okudzeto was aged 72 and was a private legal practitioner in Accra.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okudzeto, Sam 1935 births Living people Alumni of King's College London 20th-century Ghanaian lawyers Ghanaian schoolteachers Ghanaian MPs 1969–1972 Members of the Council of State (Ghana) National Alliance of Liberals politicians 21st-century Ghanaian lawyers