Bernard Bediako Baidoo

Bernard Bediako Baidoo is a Ghanaian lawyer and the National Democratic Congress Member of Parliament for Akwatia in the Eastern Region. He was born on 15 May 1985. He won the seat in a by-election on 2 September 2025, taking it from the New Patriotic Party after the death of its MP, Ernest Kumi, and pushing the NDC's majority in Parliament to 183 seats.

A long education in law and public policy

Baidoo had his basic education at the Oil Palm Research Institute Basic School near Kade, not far from the constituency he now represents, and his secondary education at Accra Academy. He then built up an unusually long list of qualifications: a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Public Administration and a Master of Laws from the University of Ghana, a Bachelor of Laws from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, and a Master of Arts from the Ghana Institute of Journalism. He completed the professional law course at the Ghana School of Law and practises as a lawyer.

Party lawyer and organiser

Before running for Parliament he worked inside the NDC as a party secretary and as one of its lawyers. After the December 2024 election, when the NPP's Ernest Kumi was declared winner in Akwatia, Baidoo was part of the NDC legal team that challenged the result, a dispute that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Akwatia by-election

Kumi died on 7 July 2025, only six months into his term, and the seat fell vacant. On 4 August 2025 Baidoo won a tight NDC primary with 380 votes, ahead of Rasmus Koneh Ali on 366 and Henry Boakye Yiadom on 226.

At the by-election on 2 September he polled 18,199 votes against 15,235 for the NPP's Solomon Kwame Asumadu, with the Liberal Party of Ghana's Patrick Owusu on 82. The win of close to 3,000 votes cut the NPP to 87 seats in the 275-member House.

Ghana's political diamond

Akwatia is the centre of Ghana's diamond mining, and the seat has a reputation as one of the country's most unpredictable. It has swung between the NDC and the NPP repeatedly since 1992, and local commentators often say it follows the fortunes of the mines: the NPP does well when business is good, and the NDC gains when frustration sets in.