Between entrepreneurship and politics, a biography of alhaji Aliu Mahama, 1946 to 2012

Abstract

This thesis examines the life and times of Alhaji Aliu Mahama - an engineer, entrepreneur, and statesman from 1946 to 2012. The purpose of this work is to offer a detailed understanding of Alhaji Aliu Mahama's life with an emphasis on his struggles, works, successes, and failures. The study revealed that Alhaji Aliu Mahama was a disciplinarian and a determined person who achieved an uninterrupted education from basic to tertiary. The study also revealed that Alhaji Aliu Mahama had a dramatic rise in his professional career as an engineer and a private entrepreneur. In theory, he had undergone rigorous professional discipline. The thesis further revealed that Alhaji Aliu Mahama was not a novice in politics. One most important observation that came out from this study is that Aliu’s appointment as a running mate and later Vice President in election 2000 was more of a coincidence than design. The study discovered that Alhaji Aliu Mah ama was not interested in becoming a Vice President of the New Patriotic Party and that it was the maneuverings of J. A. Kufour that brought Aliu to the position. This is a qualitative study that relied extensively on oral data. Information was generated through oral interviews from Aliu Mahama's family members, classmates, friends, and elderly citizens, as well as his contemporaries in business and politics. Additional data were solicited from Alhaji Aliu Mahama's personal diaries, graphics, funeral tributes, and archival information. Secondary materials including books, journal articles, and public lectures relating to Aliu's life and political activities were used to corroborate the information obtained from the primary data.