Why I rejected Akufo-Addo’s ambassador job in 2018 – Otiko Djaba

• Posted on May 3, 2023May 3, 2023
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The former Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Otiko Afisa Djaba, has explained why she declined an ambassadorial job President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo offered to serve as Ghana’s Ambassador to Italy in 2018.

She said she has no regrets about rejecting the job because she is retiring from active politics.

Speaking on GTV, she said her four children had to be content with an absentee mother for years because of her work in the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) space and later into a full-time party and national politics.

Otiko Djaba stated: “I’d worked for sixteen years, I had four children, I was waking up at 2 am, 5 am to go to work all over the country. I became an absentee mother, I had the right to spend time with my children.”

“It is the best thing that ever happened to me, for me to decline to go to Italy and the best thing that ever happened to me to come out of development to go into politics,” she added.

She, however, expressed gratitude to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) stating that prior to politics she was working in 98 communities, it would have been impossible to achieve all of these things that I have told you, so I am very grateful to my party.

Otiko Djaba who is Nana Addo’s loyalist said she has informed the President of both decisions and has revealed she expects to relax and enjoy with her family.

Before joining the government in February 2017, Ms. Djaba was the NPP National Women’s Organiser who liked to call for fasting and prayers when the party descended into bitter internal wranglings in 2015 with a crucial general election ahead in December 2016.