Mrs. Naa-Morkor Abrefa Busia was born on April 5th, 1924 in Accra, Ghana…

At age 16, she was admitted to the newly established three-year midwifery-training course at Korle-Bu Hospital, and graduated among the first hospital-trained midwives in the country, attaining her Central Midwifery Board certificate in 1944. This led to a lifetime commitment to the betterment of conditions under which women give birth. Decades later, still battling to bring down the high infant mortality rate, as first Lady of Ghana, she became personally responsible for the building and improving of midwifery clinics around the country.”

After graduating from Korle-Bu Hospital, Mrs. Busia remained in government service in Accra, before moving to Tarkwaa, where she opened a private practice. During this period, she reconnected with Kofi Abrefa Busia, her former Math and Latin teacher from her school days. When Prof. Busia sailed to England to become the first black African to attend University College, Oxford, he remembered his former pupil and sent for her.

Shortly after their marriage, they returned from England to Ghana, where Prof. Busia became the first African professor at the University of Legon, and the first African Chair of the Department of Sociology by 1954. But tensions rose into a gathering storm, as the mild-mannered and soft-spoken teacher she had married became the central focus of a determined opposition to a government growing increasingly ruthless. Their first exile lasted seven years. Naa Morkor Busia, young children in tow, followed her husband to academic positions in Holland, Mexico and England, all the time braving the vicissitudes that came from his role as leader of the opposition in exile.

In 1964, fueled by her continuing desire to use her gifts to brighten the world she lived in, Naa Busia decided to further her education. By this time she was forty, and with the full support of her husband, she obtained a scholarship to Westminster College, Oxfordshire, to study for a teaching diploma in primary education. After graduating in 1967, she returned to Ghana, made possible by the Coup d’etat of 1966, to support her husband in the challenges he faced. She became a foundation member of the Progress Party, for which she created and designed the party symbol.

On the campaign trail, whenever Naa Mokor Busia took the platform, crowds roared with enthusiastic support. The Progress Party won a landslide victory, with a yet unbeaten margin of 105 out of 120 constituencies, which propelled her to the demanding heights of public life, as Ghana’s “most popular” First Lady, a title attributed to her even today.

Life as the wife of the Prime Minister was demanding. Naa Morkor was by nature a woman who treasured the tranquility of a private home life, yet she continued to exceed public duty with characteristic grace. She found herself speaking to crowds, commissioning ships, opening health clinics, dedicating markets and addressing communities; health care professionals, educators, and those engaged in women’s and children’s affairs. Though she held no official public office, she was pleased to see several projects dear to her heart come to fruition; including the construction of Accra’s largest market at Kaneshi, which she commissioned to be covered so market women would no longer have to sell under the blazing sun or pouring rain.

During her days as a mid-wife, a quarter of a century earlier, the open market had been part of the terrain Naa Morkor cycled to, to check on patients (before becoming one of the first two women drivers in Ghana). She had long been concerned about the hazardous conditions under which market-women worked and cared for their children. The government of the Second Republic’s commitment to health care enabled her to open a number of facilities, including clinics, which are still flourishing to this day, and the digging of bore holes supplying pipe borne water all over the country. The Second Republic provided avenues to express such immediate social concerns, and people were accessible and open to the suggestion of such ideas to improve the lives of the people, especially women, in both rural and urban areas. It is this dual aspect of the vision of improved education and Human Rights of Prof’s Presidency and Naa Morkor’s vision for improved healthcare for women, which BFI is still committed to today.

The Military Coup of January 1972 came as a great surprise. With Prof. Busia abroad, Naa Morkor Busia was alone in their home with her daughter, Abena, when the soldiers engaged in a gun battle with those guarding the house. Eventually overpowering them, the coup makers advanced up the driveway and showered the doors of the house with bullets, holding Mrs. Busia and her and daughter hostage for the next two weeks. Naa Morkor’s major concern was for her husband of whom she had no news; save hearing an interview he had given the BBC the day after the coup, expressing his concern for the life of his wife and daughter. Such was her grace, resilience and wit, even under such life-threatening circumstances, that the commanding officer assigned to place her under house-arrest ended up admiring her, and ensuring her and her daughter’s safety from unruly soldiers. Freed as a result of international intervention, Mrs. Busia and her daughter were released to travel to their home in England. At their stopover in France, they were intercepted with the news that Prof. Busia had been in a hospital in France for a week.

The next seven years found Mrs. Busia living in England, caring for their children, and the Prof who was losing his sight. She also played a major role in their support of political exiles, and securing legal defense for party loyalists being persecuted in Ghana. By the summer of 1978, there was great movement on the political scene in Ghana, demanding the return of freely elected government, and all indications were that Prof, and many other political refugees, could safely return home to Ghana by the end of the year.  In such an atmosphere, Dr. Busia’s sudden death at the end of August came as a great shock. In a private journal, Naa Morkor Busia wrote that standing beside his hospital bed that day, she felt her world was crumbling.

Although she spent short periods of her time between 1979 and 1984 in Ghana, fighting for the return of her husband’s properties, and the country’s return to democracy; by the mid 1980s, her children were in agreement that the situation in Ghana was too difficult and insecure for her, and that she should join her daughters in the United States, where she lived until her return home in 1994.

In the years between founding Busia Foundation in 1998, and her own call to glory in 2010, although frequently challenged by financial concerns, Naa Morkor Busia, worked tirelessly to promote the work of the Busia Foundations. Over the years BFI has supported various charities and educational establishments, provided running water to maternity clinics, and given bursaries to help deserving students complete their school and university educations.

In 2004, to honor her 80th birthday, Mrs. Busia was celebrated by thousands at the Accara International Conference Center, with a concert from BFI Advisory Board Member, singer-composer and Humanitarian, Stevie Wonder. On the occasion of Mrs. Busia’s passing, Stevie Wonder returned to Ghana, as did many other dignitaries, and sang for her home-going. After learning of Mrs. Busia’s passing, the President of Ghana, His Excellency John Atta Mills, immediately offered a State assisted funeral, and despite being political rivals stated: “She was a great woman. My wife told me how [Mrs. Busia] came to her hometown and built the women Prampram a midwifery clinic there. She will always be well remembered.”

Busia Foundation Continues in the legacy and vision of Prime-Minister Busia, and his great First Lady, Madam, Naa Morkor.