My journey to becoming Ghana's first female EC, first NCCE boss – Charlotte Osei shares

Former Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC), Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei, is perhaps one of the most accomplished women in Ghana, having broken many glass ceilings for women in the country.

Charlotte Osei was the first female Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), the first female to lead the EC, the first woman to assume the role of the President of the African Association of Election Authorities and the first woman to be appointed as the Vice Chairperson of the Executive Board of the African Capacity Building Foundation.

She is also the first Ghanaian to be appointed as an International Election Commissioner to help organise the election in Afghanistan, as well as resolve the country’s electoral disputes.

The former EC boss, in an interview on the JoyNews Personality Profile, told the story of her sudden rise to the top public offices in the country.

Charlotte Osei, who is now the Safohen of the Oguaa Traditional Area, said that she had no interest in public service and was doing very well in private legal practice.

She said that it took the intervention of the late former President John Evans Atta Mills for her to accept the appointment to lead the NCCE in 2011.

The Safohen, who is a commercial law expert, said that she was happily managing the private legal firm she established when one of the Ahwoi brothers came to inform her that Prof Mills wanted her to become the chairperson of the NCCE.

Upon sober reflection, she said she decided to accept the call to duty offered her by her mentor.

“Professor Mills had been my lecturer at Legon and then at the law school. He taught me commercial law at Legon, and he taught me company law at the law school and was always like a mentor. I remember when I was applying for master’s programmes, he did reference forms for me and all that. And then I got a call that I was to meet a gentleman I’d never met before - Mr Kwame Ahwoi.

“So, I went to have a meeting with him, and he said, professor wanted me to come and chair the National Commission for Civic Education. I was like, hmm. First answer was no. And then he said, go and think about it. And I went and I consulted with my husband, some friends, and everybody said absolutely,” she narrated.

She added, “I had a lot of respect for Prof, and it was almost like for everybody, if you care about this country and you mean well for this country, then it’s a call to service. And what I’ve now learned is that when there’s a call to service, your answer should be yes. So, that’s why I did it.”

Charlotte Osei, who has had vast experience in private service working for the Ghana Commercial Bank and UniBank, indicated that her experience at the NCCE was an eye-opener because it made her see that there is more to Ghana than Accra.

She said that her job at the NCCE exposed her to the many challenges across the length and breadth of the country.

She asserted that as she was enjoying her first public service work, then came her appointment as the EC chair which she nearly rejected because of her fears that the job would have a great impact on her family, which eventually turned out to be true.

“Who wants to walk into fire? And I also had to think about my family. And I think in retrospect I was right because my family took a huge bashing from that role. So, yeah, it was no. And again, it was the same argument. It’s a call to service,” she said.

Osei said that she never knew of her appointment as EC chair until she started receiving congratulatory messages while she was out of the country for a funeral.

“I was not in the country. I was at a funeral outside the country, and then I got a message that this announcement was about to be made. But within two minutes of getting that message, I started getting messages from people congratulating me,” she recalled.

She indicated that she eventually received a call and was told to return to the country to be sworn in as EC chairperson.

She debunked a lot of allegations against her during her tenure as the EC boss, including the claim that she was a member of the National Democratic Congress and a former parliamentary candidate aspirant of the party.

The former EC boss also disclosed that she never wanted to go to university after secondary school and wanted to be a florist because of her love for flowers.

She said that after her parents convinced her to go to the university, she wanted to study economics and statistics but her dad told her she had to study law, which she ended up falling in love with.

BAI/AE

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