Hawa's family waiting for the body

Accra, March 27, GNA - Ministers of State, New Patriotic Party (NPP) members, friends and sympathizers of the late Madam Hawa Yakubu, First Vice National President of NPP met on Tuesday in Accra to express their condolences to the family of the deceased.

The meeting was part of the cultural practices for a family to meet after a week following the demise of a person to discuss how to organize the funeral.

A family member, who spoke on anonymity, told the Ghana News Agency that the family was waiting for the body to be flown from London to Ghana so that they could make concrete decisions about the funeral. He said: "Until the body arrives safely in Ghana we can not put together any concrete plan, the meeting today is to plan the funeral but we have not set the date yet."

He however, expressed hope that the body of the late Hawa Yakubu would arrive within a month to enable the family set a concrete date for the funeral.

Nana Ohene Ntow, NPP General Secretary said the party saw the funeral of the late Hawa Yakubu as their own but said a greater part of the decisions would come from the family.

He said the family was yet to confirm the arrival of the body from London and expressed the party's readiness to cooperate with the family throughout the funeral.

Prominent among sympathizers were Sheikh I C Quaye, Greater Accra Regional Minister, Mr Hackman Owusu Agyeman, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Mr Dan Botwe, Former Minister of Information, Mr Mac Manu, NPP Chairman and staff of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs.

Hawa Yakubu who died in London last week was popularly known as "Iron Lady" for her resilience, forthrightness and determination to fight.

She was the former MP for Bawku Central, Minister of Tourism and Member of the ECOWAS Parliament.

Madam Yakubu comes from Pusiga in the Upper East Region and was born in Tarkwa in the Western Region on March 24, 1948 to Mr Yakubu Awinaba and Hajia Azore.

She attended Zebilla Middle School, Navrongo Secondary School and Accra Polytechnic where she obtained a certificate in Institutional Management.

She recently obtained a Master's Degree in Leadership and Governance from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. Madam Yakubu's political career started in 1979 when she was elected into the Local Council, which in turn elected her to the Constituent Assembly that wrote the 1979 Third Republic Constitution. Although her mother was an activist of the Convention People's Party (CPP), she joined the late William Ofori-Atta when he formed the United National Convention (UNC) for the 1979 election. She fled to London when the Provisional National Defence Council came to power on December 1981 and lived in the United Kingdom and Nigeria before returning home in 1991.

Madam Yakubu contested the 1992 parliamentary election as an independent candidate in Bawku Central and won; lost it in 1996, won the seat in 2000 as NPP candidate and lost it in 2004 to the NDC. She had four children; two sons (Felix and Derek) during her first marriage to Mr Amadu Ayebo and two daughters (Amanda and Dieudonne) during her second marriage to defunct Nigeria Airways pilot Hodge Ogede. Felix passed away in 2000.