Obed Asamoah

Dr. Obed Yao Asamoah (born 6 February 1936) is a politician from Ghana. Asamoah was the longest serving foreign minister and Attorney General of Ghana under Jerry Rawlings from 1981 to 1997. Asamoah was educated at King's College London and at Columbia University. He was a lecturer in Law at the University of Ghana. Some of his famous students include Professor John Evans Atta Mills (the former president of Ghana), Tsatsu Tsikata, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, current flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), etc. In 2002, Asamoah replaced Rawlings as head of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), beating former defense minister Alhaji Iddrisu by just 2 votes. In 2006, he lost his chairmanship position in the party. Not long after the defeat, he later resigned from the party. After accusations of having "stolen" about a 10 thousand cedis (which he had reported lost from his bedroom) in the mid-90s, on August 28, 2006, he and other politicians (most of whom also resigned from the NDC) launched a new political party, the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) of which he is the life Patron. Despite speculation that Asamoah would run for President in 2008, he declared that he never intended to run for the presidency and would not seek the Presidency but instead work to win victory for his party in that year's national elections.. In October 2011, Dr. Obed Asamoah and his Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) re-joins the National Democratic Congress (NDC)which he helped form. He described as "wasteful thinking", suggestions that the DFP merged with the NDC because of ministerial appointment offers. He said the decision by the party to re-unite with the NDC is purely based on the growing internal democracy within the NDC.