Veteran Trade Unionist and Politician passes on

The Veteran Trade Unionist, Politician, and Author John Alex Hamah has passed on at the age of 84. This sad incident occurred on Friday, June 11th at the Tema General Hospital, after a short illness.

John Alex Hamah was born on January 12, 1937, at Agona Abodom in the Central Region of Ghana. He is survived by a wife and five children.

According to the family, the funeral arrangement will be announced later.

John Alex Hamah has been in Ghanaian public life for over six decades, a period during which he held various positions at different periods, a family statement copied to the Tema Regional Office of the Ghana News Agency on Monday stated.

According to the family statement signed by Mr Joe Mensah, Head of Family Ajumako Asasani and Agona Nyakrom said the late Hamah worked as Senior Industrial Relations Officer of the Industrial Commercial Workers Union; the Accra Regional Secretary of Ghana Trades Union Congress; and Accra Regional Secretary of the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP).

The late Hamah also served as the Education Officer of the Young Pioneer’s Movement, the Youth Wing of the CPP; Secretary-General of the Re-constituted Ghana National Youth Council; Head of the Education and Training Department of the TUC; and Rector of the Ghana Labour College.

He served as the Secretary-General of the African Democratic League led by Nobel Professor Laureate Wole Soyinka; Editor-in-Chief of ‘Taxi Magazine’ of the Nigerian Taxi Drivers Union, catering for the Oil, Transport and Tourism industries; and Editor-in-Chief, ‘The Comet’.

The late John Alex Hamah went into voluntary exile in 1972 and returned to Ghana to form and lead the Ghana Democratic Party (GDP).

On January 12, 1974, a day which happened to be his 37th birthday, Alex Hamah was sentenced to death by firing squad by the National Redemption Council for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Military Regime.

After serving five years in jail, he was released on the orders of the Chairman of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) in 1978 and later given free, absolute, and unconditional pardon by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council led by Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings in 1979.

John Alex Hamah has authored three books: ‘Farewell Africa- Life and Death of Nkrumah; Too Young to Die – My Ordeal in Nsawam Condemned Cell’ and Dynamics of African Tyranny – A theory of the One-Party State.

John Alex Hamah is a recipient of two prestigious awards of the Trades Union Congress for his invaluable contribution towards the building of a free, strong, and democratic Trade Union Movement in Ghana.