President John Dramani Mahama has shared personal accounts of his father’s detention under successive military regimes, saying those experiences shaped his lifelong commitment to justice, due process and human rights.
Delivering the keynote address at the opening of the 2026 judicial year of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Arusha on Monday (2 March), Mahama said his father — a former minister in the government of Kwame Nkrumah — was detained after the 1966 coup and later arrested again for advising a military ruler not to cling to power.
“My connection to justice and human rights is rooted in my family’s history,” he said. “I remain the child whose father was detained for serving his country and advising its leader.”
Mahama said his father was held for more than a year after the coup that overthrew Nkrumah and was later taken into custody again after writing a letter to then military leader Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, urging him to step down while still popular.
He described recurring childhood fears and “nightmares” about his father standing before judges, adding that such experiences showed how easily those in power can act as “judge, jury and executioner”.
The President said individual injustices ripple through families and communities, arguing that stronger continental institutions are needed to prevent abuse and impunity.
He cited the imprisonment, exile or assassination of several African liberation figures — including Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara and Nelson Mandela — as examples of the cost of weak legal protections on the continent.
Mahama said many of those injustices might have been addressed earlier if the court had existed at the time.
“For the past 20 years, we’ve had a court that can protect the rights and dignity of African people beyond the borders of our individual nations,” he said, calling the institution a critical safeguard for future generations.
He urged African leaders to strengthen domestic justice systems and support the court to ensure that “no one stands alone” in the face of state power.
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