Kow Nkensen Arkaah: The politician who became running mate to two rival alliances

In Ghana’s political history, few careers have taken as unusual a path as that of Kow Nkensen Arkaah, a politician whose name became associated with two major political alliances that eventually shaped the country’s Fourth Republic.

Arkaah was not simply a political figure who served in high office. His political journey placed him at the centre of one of the most interesting periods in Ghana’s transition to constitutional rule in the early 1990s.

Born on July 14, 1927, Arkaah built a career outside frontline politics before eventually entering national political life. His professional background included work in business and international organisations, experiences that would later feed into his political career.

When Ghana returned to constitutional rule in 1992, Arkaah emerged as the presidential candidate of the National Convention Party (NCP).

The NCP subsequently became part of an alliance with the National Democratic Congress (NDC), led by Jerry John Rawlings, ahead of the 1992 presidential election.

Under the arrangement, Rawlings contested the presidency while Arkaah became his running mate.

The alliance won the 1992 presidential election, making Arkaah Ghana’s first Vice President under the Fourth Republic.

However, his tenure in office was far from uneventful.

Relations between President Rawlings and Vice President Arkaah eventually deteriorated, with tensions within the government becoming increasingly public.

In 1995, Arkaah announced that he was resigning from the vice presidency, bringing an end to a politically turbulent relationship with the Rawlings administration.

But Arkaah’s political story did not end there.

In another remarkable turn, he later became associated with a different political alliance involving the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and other opposition forces.

The development cemented his unusual place in Ghanaian political history: a politician who had served as a running mate within an alliance led by the NDC and later became connected to an opposition alliance involving the NPP.

His political journey reflected the shifting alliances and strategic calculations that characterised Ghana’s opposition politics during the early years of the Fourth Republic.

Arkaah eventually withdrew from active frontline politics, but his name remains attached to one of the most distinctive political journeys in Ghana’s modern history.

From leading the NCP to becoming Rawlings’ running mate, serving as Vice President and later aligning with political forces opposed to the NDC, Kow Nkensen Arkaah’s career offers a striking reminder of how dramatically Ghanaian political alliances have evolved.

For students of Ghanaian politics, his story remains an important chapter in understanding the country’s early Fourth Republic—and the sometimes unexpected alliances that shaped it.