Catherine Afeku, a former Member of Parliament on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has disclosed why she gave up her American citizenship in order to contest for a seat in the legislature.
The two-time MP and former tourism minister said in an interview on Accra-based Metro TV (September 13, 2023) that she gave back the US citizenship in 2008 in time to contest in the December 2008 election in Evalue Ajomoro Gwira Constituency.
“This was May 2008 and I was a US citizen for quite a while … and that is the ultimate sacrifice,” she stated before adding that she had no regrets for her action.
On the circumstances that led to her decision, she recounted: “I read a book before taking that decision ‘General Paton,’ it is an American hero, a war general who burns the bridge and goes with the troops, so you cannot go back.
“So, I made up my mind triggered by a visit by the late Jake Obetsebi Lamptey and Oboshie Sai Coffie, they had come to Atlanta… to the Martin Luther King Center to meet Ghanaians in the diaspora and I was the one who hosted them doing the emceeing.”
She said the mai trigger, however, was a request by Oboshie that she was needed in Ghana, “I said, for what? And that is how it started,” she said.
She said as an American citizen with a corporate job who was doing well, she could have opted to stay in the States “but that was the trigger, she called and said come and help your government.”
Afeku, who is aspiring to return to Parliament having lost her seat in 2020 stressed how she had caused a major victory for the NPP by winning the Evalue Ajomoro Gwira seat in an area that was predominantly Nkrumahist – voting either the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) or the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
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Catherine Afeku
