Mahama taught high-school history for a few years before pursuing a postgraduate degree in social psychology from the Institute of Social Sciences in Moscow, which was awarded in 1988.
After Mahama returned to Ghana, he worked in Accra as the Information, Culture, and Research Officer at the embassy of Japan until 1995.
He then worked at the Ghana office of Plan International, a humanitarian and development organization, as the international relations, sponsorship, communication, and grants manager.
In 1996 he was elected to Parliament under the banner of the National Democratic Congress (NDC); he was reelected in 2000 and 2004.
While in Parliament he held several posts, including Minister of Communications (1998–2001), before being chosen as the vice presidential candiate on the NDC ticket in 2008 with John Evans Atta Mills.
Mills won the December 2008 presidential election, and he and Mahama were inaugurated on January 7, 2009.
After the unexpected death of Mills on July 24, 2012, Mahama was elevated to the presidency, just months before the end of Mills’s term.
The NDC selected Mahama to be their candidate in the December 7, 2012, election, in which he competed against seven other candidates.
He was announced the winner, with 50.7 percent of the vote; by taking more than 50 percent, Mahama narrowly avoided a runoff election with his nearest challenger, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who had won 47.74 percent.
Akufo-Addo and the NPP, however, alleged that electoral fraud had taken place and filed a petition with the Supreme Court, challenging the results.
In August 2013 the Court dismissed the NPP’s petition and upheld Mahama’s victory.
Meanwhile, Mahama continued serving as president, having been inaugurated on January 7, 2013, and faced a worsening economic situation in the country.
Falling global prices on Ghana’s primary exports as well as increasing public wage costs negatively impacted Ghana’s economy, as did increasing debt.
Also affecting the economy were power shortages, which had become an unfortunate hallmark of his administration and led to a nickname for the president that Mahama himself joked about:
Mr. Dumsor, dum-sor meaning “off-on” in the local Twi language and describing the regularly occurring incidents of the power cutting off and then turning back on.
The economic woes and power shortages, as well as anger over corruption scandals, frustrated voters as the 2016 elections approached.
Mahama, however, was able to counter some of the frustration by pointing to his accomplishments and highlighting infrastructure projects completed under his administration, such as those in the transportation, health, and education sectors.
He was again the NDC’s presidential candidate in the election that was held on December 7, 2016, in which he faced Akufo-Addo for a second time and five other candidates. Mahama was defeated by Akufo-Addo, who won almost 54 percent of the vote. Mahama, who placed second with about 44 percent of the vote, conceded and stepped down at the end of his term in January 2017.
Mahama remained active in politics.
In 2019 he was selected as the NDC’s presidential candidate for the 2020 elections.
Mahama is married to Lordina Mahama.
Mahama has five children named Shafik, Shahid, Sharaf, Jesse and Farida.
He is a Christian, born and raised a Presbyterian but is now a member of the Assemblies of God, Ghana by marriage.
His family is multi-faith, consisting of Christians and Muslims.
Being a staunch campaigner for sustainability, he has a keen interest in environmental affairs, particularly the problem of single-use plastic waste pollution in Africa, which he committed himself to addressing during his tenure as vice president.
Over the course of his career, Mahama has written for several newspapers and other publications both locally and internationally.
As a Parliamentarian, Mahama wrote Mahama’s Hammer, a semi-regular column in a Ghanaian newspaper. His essays have also been published in the Daily Graphic, Ebony, Huffington Post, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the New York Times and The Root.
Additionally, he was a featured speaker at the TEDx Great Pacific Garbage Patch Conference in Santa Monica.
Mahama is also a devotee of Afrobeat music, especially that of Fela Kuti.
Apart from his hobby of reading, Mahama also has a passionate interest in innovation particularly the use of technology in agriculture being a farmer himself.
In particular, he is interested in finding the most effective ways to improve agricultural productivity and works to encourage more young people to see farming as a viable business and not a subsistence activity.
This has translated into his passion to see the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) create new opportunities for people living in the Savanna areas of the country, which includes the three Northern Regions, and the Volta Region.
Even on official assignments outside of country, Mahama likes to take advantage of opportunities to visit agricultural establishments and update himself on current trends and developments.
He also takes keen interest in the opportunities for simplifying and making tasks easier with the use of information and communications technology, and considers the ICT industry one of the sectors that can play a significant role in economic transformation and job creation.
He’s an avid fan of motor biking and owns about 5 of them.
Mahama’s first book, a memoir called ”My First Coup d’État: Memories from the Lost Decades of Africa”, was published by Bloomsbury on 3 July 2012.
The most promising son of an affluent government minister, he spends his childhood shuttling in his father’s chauffeur-driven cars, from his elite boarding school Achimota School in Accra to his many homes.
He recalls in its first chapter the day in 1966 when he learned of the ousting of Ghana’s founding president, Kwame Nkrumah, in a military coup:
“When I look back on my life it’s clear to me that this moment marked the awakening of my consciousness.
It changed my life and influenced all the moments that followed.”
Mahama received an honorary doctorate in the field of Public Administration, from the Ekiti State University of Nigeria, formerly affiliated to the Obafemi Awolowo University in “recognition of his politico-socio economic development of Ghana and Africa at various stages of his political career.
Later the same university passed a resolution to name its Faculty of Management Science after him.
The Cuban government, recognising Mahama’s relentless advocacy for the Cuban cause, namely for the lifting of the 50-year economic embargo on the communist country and for the freedom of the detained Cuban five by the United States government, conferred on him the Friendship Medal.
The General Council of Assemblies of God, Ghana honoured Mahama with its Daniel Award.
The Graduate School of Governance and Leadership also awarded him the African Servant Leadership Award while the Institute of Public Relations recognized Mahama with a prize for his leadership acumen and technocratic flair.
In 2013, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) conferred on Mahama the Africa Award for Excellence in Food Security and Poverty Reduction.
In March 2016, University of Aberdeen held a special convocation to confer an honorary degree of Doctors of Laws (LLD) on President John Mahama.
Mahama has also attended numerous conferences and won many fellowships, including a study as a visiting scholar at The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States.
He is also a Bill Gates Fellow.
He was awarded the Great Cross of the National Order of Benin, the highest award in Benin, by President Yayi Boni.
In February 2017, Mahama received the 2016 African Political Leader of the Year Award from the African Leadership Magazine in South Africa.
