Former First Lady Theresa Kufuor dead

Former First Lady Theresa Kufuor is dead, Citi News can confirm.

Citi News has gathered that Theresa Kufuor, the wife of former President John Agyekum Kufuor died at her home in Peduase surrounded by her family on Sunday, October 1. She was 87.

President Nana Akufo-Addo has already visited the residence of former President Kufuor to extend his condolences.

Theresa Kufuor (born 25 October 1935) was the wife of John Kufuor, the second President of the Fourth Republic of Ghana, and former First Lady of Ghana. She was a retired nurse and midwife.

Mrs Kufuor started her education at the Catholic Convent, OLA, at Keta in the Volta Region of Ghana. She later went to London, where she was educated as a Registered General Nurse, in the Southern Hospital Group of Nursing, Edinburgh, Scotland.

After further study at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford and Paddington General Hospital, London, she qualified as a State Certified Midwife with a Certificate in Premature Nursing.

Theresa married John Kufuor when he was at age 23 after they met at a Republic Day Anniversary Dance in London in 1961. They got married in 1962. She is a mother of five and a grandmother of eight. She is a devout Roman Catholic.

Despite being the first lady of Ghana for eight years between 2001 and 2009, she managed to maintain a low profile in the political arena.

In 2007 she pushed for policy changes in the Government’s white paper on Educational Reforms towards the implementation of UNESCO’s Free compulsory universal basic education (FCUBE) program for kindergarten children.

She founded the Mother and Child Community Development Foundation (MCCDF), a non-governmental organisation operating in Ghana and Canada that supports work in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission.