Kow Nkensen Arkaah

Kow Nkensen Arkaah was a business executive and politician who was Vice-President of Ghana from 1993 to 1997, in the first government of the Fourth Republic. He was born at Senya Beraku on 14 July 1927, was also a chief there, and died on 25 April 2001.

He went to Mfantsipim School and Achimota College, then studied at Tufts and took an MBA at Harvard in 1954. He worked for Socony Oil in New York and Mobil Oil in Ghana, rose to Principal Secretary in the civil service, and headed the Ghana National Trading Corporation, Ghana Airways and the Ghana National Procurement Agency.

As leader of the National Convention Party he joined Jerry Rawlings's alliance for the 1992 election and became his running mate. The partnership was stormy, and after an alleged scuffle at a cabinet meeting in December 1995 Arkaah called himself the "stubborn cat". He led the new Convention People's Party into the 1996 election and lost, and John Atta Mills replaced him as Vice-President. He died in the United States of injuries from a road accident in Accra.