by Etse Sikanku
Theresa Ameley Tagoe, a.k.a. T.T, the resilient and gravelly-voiced former legislator from Ghana whose political valor captured nationwide attention has died.
WoP news monitoring sources indicate the former Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry and later Deputy Minister of the Greater Accra region under the Kufuor regime died Thursday evening. No immediate causes have been identified but the long term serving former MP for Ablekuma South was known to be in poor health.
Tagoe was a career politician whose interest in politics dates back to her days at Aburi Girls Secondary School, one of Ghana’s well known female educational institutions. She was best known for her nonchalant, no nonsense attitude which sometimes rubbed people even in her own party.
Her claim to fame can be traced back to the December 1999 elections where she aggressively led protests against perceived government inaction over the murder of countless women in the Greater Accra Region under the watch of former President Rawlings’s NDC. Those elections brought John Kufuor and the NPP to power where Tagoe was rewarded with a ministerial post.
Coincidentally current President Mills who defeated the NPP in the last elections has ordered fresh investigations into those unsolved murders.
Ameley Tagoe will be remembered as a tough talking parliamentarian and women’s right advocate who was courageous.
Many Ghanaians will also miss her atypical mixture of English, Ga and Twi even during interviews and parliamentary proceedings. Though colloquial it became her signature tune which was exciting, endearing and mortifying all at the same time.
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