Ghana’s former foreign minister and former President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, James Victor Gbeho, has died at the age of 91, family sources said.
Gbeho died in hospital on Saturday, June 13, after decades of service to Ghana, the West African sub-region and the international community.
Born on Jan. 12, 1935, in Keta in Ghana’s Volta Region, Gbeho was a lawyer, diplomat and politician whose career spanned several decades.
He served as Ghana’s foreign minister from 1997 to 2001 under then-President Jerry John Rawlings. He later represented the Anlo constituency in parliament between 2001 and 2005 and subsequently served as a foreign policy adviser to the late President John Evans Atta Mills.
Gbeho held diplomatic postings in China, India, Nigeria, Germany, Britain and Switzerland. He also served as Ghana’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York from 1980 to 1990 and held ambassadorial assignments in Geneva and other international capitals.
In 2010, he was unanimously elected President of the ECOWAS Commission, the executive arm of the West African regional bloc, and served until 2012. During his tenure, he was involved in efforts aimed at promoting regional integration and strengthening diplomatic cooperation among member states.
Gbeho came from a family with a long history of public service.
He was the son of Philip Gbeho, the composer credited with Ghana’s national anthem.
