Ask any Ghanaian to list the names of Ghana’s past presidents, and you’ll get the familiar list: Nkrumah, Ankrah, Afrifa, Akufo-Addo, Acheampong, Limann, Rawlings, Kufuor, Mills, Mahama, Akufo-Addo again.

One name, however, is always left out, quietly skipped over as though he never held the office at all.

That man is Raphael Nii Amaa Ollennu, who was President of Ghana for 24 days in August 1970.

Why his term was so short

Ollennu’s presidency was never meant to be permanent, and it was too short to register in the public memory.

He was appointed Chairman of the Presidential Commission, a caretaker role designed to steer Ghana through the final stretch of its return to civilian rule.

He served as acting president from 7 August to 31 August 1970, taking over from Lieutenant General A.A. Afrifa.

He handed power to Edward Akufo-Addo once Ghana’s Second Republic was fully in place, under the government of Prime Minister Dr K.A. Busia.

He spent just 24 days in office, making him the shortest-serving president in the country’s history.

Who was Nii Amaa Ollennu?

Born on 21 May 1906 in Accra, Nii Amaa Ollennu studied at Accra High School and the Presbyterian Training College at Akropong before training as a lawyer at the Middle Temple in London, where he was called to the Bar in 1940.

Before that brief spell in office, he had already built one of the most distinguished legal careers of his time. He rose to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana in 1962, a position he held until 1966.

He also built a reputation as a legal scholar, publishing respected works on African land tenure systems and later serving as an Honorary Professor of Law at the University of Ghana.

In the early 1950s, he represented Accra in the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly and once led the Ghana Congress Party, part of the Danquah-Busia political tradition that would later shape Ghana’s Second Republic.

Before his brief presidency, he had been serving as Speaker of Parliament since October 1969 and continued in the role afterwards, until January 1972. This role left a longer mark on the country’s political institutions than his time as head of state.

As a judge, Ollennu was known for decisive, no-nonsense rulings.

In one widely referenced 1958 case, he sentenced a Takoradi man to four years in prison for using three different aliases to escape custody and attempt a break-in, a small but telling example of the firm hand he brought to the bench.

He died on 22 December 1986 at the age of 80, but his legacy carried on through his family.

His daughter, Amerley Awua-Asamoa, served as Ghana’s Ambassador to Denmark from 2017 to 2021, while a relative, Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu, went on to become a robotics engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working on the Mars Rover and InSight missions.

So the next time the list of Ghana’s presidents comes up and his name doesn’t, it’s worth remembering that Nii Amaa Ollennu did hold that office, even if it was only for 24 days.

DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author's, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana