Aaron Mike Oquaye

Ghanaian politician, lawyer and academic (born 1944)

Aaron Mike Oquaye (born 4 April 1944) is a Ghanaian barrister and politician who served as the sixth Speaker of Parliament of the Fourth Republic of Ghana from 2017 to 2021. An academic, diplomat and Baptist minister, he previously held the cabinet ministerial portfolios for energy and communication and was also the High Commissioner of Ghana to India (2002–04) in the Kufuor administration.

Michael Aaron Oquaye was born on 4 April 1944 in Osu, Accra, Ghana (then Gold Coast), to E. G. N Oquaye of Osu and Felicia Awusika Abla Oquaye (née Azu) of Odumase Krobo. Oquaye's father, E. G. N. Oquaye, had been a founding member of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) at Asamankese. He was also treasurer and principal financier of the UGCC, Gold Coast Party (GCP), National Liberation Movement (NLM) and United Party (UP) at Asamankese. When Oquaye was a child, his family received political figures and dignitaries such as Dr. J. B. Danquah and Prof. Kofi Abrefa Busia as guests at their home. Okyenhene Nana Ofori Atta II, while in exile in Accra, was also a regular visitor to the Oquaye family home in Asamankese.

Oquaye attended the Presbyterian Boys' Senior Secondary School, where he gained his GCE "O" Level Certificate, and then Apam Secondary School for his "A" Level Certificates. He entered the University of Ghana and later the University of London, at Lincoln's Inn, London. He holds B. A. (Hons.) Political Science, L. L. B. (Hons. ), B. L. and PhD. He is a qualified solicitor and barrister, as well as the founder and senior partner of his own law firm. He is a barrister of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, a senior member of the Ghana Bar Association, and a solicitor for some leading companies and financial institutions.

Oquaye is a professor of Political science at the University of Ghana, (Legon), and was previously the Head of the Department of Political Science and member of the university's Academic Board, the highest authority at the level of the faculties. He received his Ph. D from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, as well as winning the Rockefeller Senior Scholar Award in 1993 and the Senior Fulbright Scholar Award in 1997. He has been a visiting lecturer at George Mason University in Virginia. From 1997 to 1999, he was vice president of the African Association of Political Science (AAPS), based in Zimbabwe.

As a writer, Oquaye has researched and published writings extensively on good governance, conflicts, political education, decentralization and development, human rights, military intervention in politics, NGOs, rural development and gender issues. He advocates women's rights, including affirmative action. He is the author of the award winning book Politics in Ghana, 1972–1979, in which he depicts, inter alia, the military as the bane of Government and Politics in Africa and recounted instances of human right abuses, conflictual politics, economic mismanagement and national decadence. He wrote a second volume, Politics in Ghana, 1982–1992, dealing with the politics of revolution, CDRs, Public Tribunals, popular power, positive defiance and human rights issues of the period. His scholarly articles have been published in international journals such as the Human Rights Quarterly (US), Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics (UK), African Affairs (UK), and Review of Human Factor Studies (Canada).

As a student at the University of Ghana, Oquaye joined the campaign for the J. B. Danquah / Kofi Abrefa Busia cause. Oquaye strongly supported Busia's call for quick return to civilian rule to prevent the militarization of the state and, along with his family, helped to establish the Progress Party in Osu in 1969.

The United Party Progress Party tradition led to the foundation, in 1992, of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), with Oquaye as a founder member. He was the first Regional Secretary of NPP for Greater Accra in 1992, and also the first Chairman of the Party for the Ga District Rural Constituency, which later split into Ga West District and Ga East District. He was the secretary of the Research Committee and a member of the first National Campaign Team of the NPP in the third quarter of 1992. He worked with other central NPP figures, including President John Kufuor, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, R. R. Amponsah, Prof. Adu Boahen, Peter Ala Adjetey, B. J. da Rocha and Samuel Odoi Sykes, to campaign successfully for the NPP victory in the 2000 general elections. Oquaye's role in the party's success, which involved journalistic contributions and involvement in other activities of the party between 1993 and 2000, is considered significant.

From 2001 to 2004, Oquaye served as Ghana's High Commissioner to India.

Oquaye served as the Speaker of Parliament in the seventh parliament of the Fourth Republic. In 2021, he was nominated by the New Patriotic Party for the role as a Speaker of Parliament in which he lost to Alban Kingsford Sumani Bagbin on 7 January who was nominated by the National Democratic Congress. Alban Kingsford Sumani Bagbin announced at the first sitting of parliament that he was elected by 138 votes while Mike Oquaye garnered 136 votes.

Oquaye is a pastor of the Baptist Church. He is married to Alberta Oquaye (née Asafu Adjaye) (Major Rtd.) a professional nurse. He is the father of Mike Oquaye Jnr, Ghana's current High Commissioner to India. Oquaye's hobbies include watching football, playing table tennis, reading books, writing, and listening to music. In August 2020, he gave a public lecture in the observance of Founders' Day, in which he claimed that "Independence was not a one man show, it was a collective effort". According to Oquaye, former president Kwame Nkrumah should not be honoured alone but together with all the founding fathers of Ghana. Oquaye also claimed Nkrumah was not alone in the struggle for independence although he fought for Ghana's independence. Nkrumah's son Sekou Nkrumah lambasted Prof. Oquaye for those comments, saying that if the speaker of parliament wanted to criticize his late father, he should talk about the one party system and the Preventive Detectionn Act (PDA) introduced during Nkrumah's time.