Hours after the military said a helicopter carrying three crew members and five passengers vanished from sight, the Ghanaian president announced that the country’s environment and defence ministries had perished in a helicopter accident on Wednesday.
Shortly after President John Mahama was sworn in in January, Edward Omane Boamah was appointed as his defence minister earlier this year.
The environment, science, and technology minister at the time was Ibrahim Murtala Muhammad.
According to police, the catastrophe claimed the lives of every person on board.
“The president and government extend our condolences and sympathies to the families of our comrades and the servicemen who died in service to the country,” said Mahama’s chief of staff Julius Debrah.
Boamah led Ghana’s military minister at a period of escalating terrorist activity in Burkina Faso, which is located across the country’s northern border.
Although, in contrast to its neighbours Togo and Benin, Ghana has so far escaped a jihadist spillover from the Sahel, analysts have issued warnings about a rise in arms trafficking and the possibility of Burkina Faso extremists using Ghana as a rear base across the porous border.
Boamah is a medical doctor by profession, and during Mahama’s last term from 2012 to 2017, he served as the communications minister. Prior to it, he served as the environment deputy minister.
An air force helicopter had taken off from Accra just after 9:00 am on Wednesday, according to a report from the Ghanaian Armed Forces. It had been travelling northwest of the city to the town of Obuasi.
The ministers were not specifically mentioned in the announcement at the time, which stated that there were five passengers and three staff members on board.
Among the deceased were Samuel Sarpong, the vice chairman of Mahama’s National Democratic Congress party, and Alhaji Muniru Mohammed, the former agricultural minister and Ghana’s deputy national security coordinator.
Boamah led a group to Ouagadougou in May as Ghana has sought deeper diplomatic ties with junta-ruled Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, all of which have parted from the ECOWAS west African regional bloc.
He was supposed to publish a book about former president John Atta Mills, who passed away in 2012, titled “A Peaceful Man in an African Democracy.”
While the president said Mahama had cancelled his official engagements for the day, Debrah declared all flags were to fly at half-staff.
