Busia, Kofi (1913-1978)

Ghanaian politician and academic, prime minister 1969-72. He became a leader of the National Liberation Movement 1954-59, in opposition to Kwame Nkrumah, and went into exile in 1959. Following the 1966 coup, he returned as adviser to the National Liberation Council and then founded the Progress Party, leading it to electoral victory in 1969. He was ousted as prime minister in a military coup in 1972, and returned to exile in the same year.

Busia was educated in Kumasi and at Achimota College, and at the universities of London and Oxford. He was one of the first Africans to be appointed as an administrative officer in the Gold Coast (now Ghana). He resigned that position to become a lecturer, and later became professor of sociology at the University College of Ghana. During his first exile he took up the chair of sociology at Leiden University, in the Netherlands, and after 1972 he held various academic posts. He died in Oxford, England.