Otiko Afisah Djaba has stated that she has no regrets turning down an ambassadorial job in 2018 after she was removed as Minister of Gender at the end of the first term of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government.

The one-time New Patriotic Party National Women’s Organizer said the best thing that ever happened to her was to decline the posting to Italy by the president and to retire from politics.

She cited the need to have ample time for her kids who she had long neglected as the main motivation to reject the ambassadorial job and to leave active politics.

Her four children had to contend with an absentee mother for years because of her work in the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) space and later into full time party and national politics, she said on the May 2 edition of the GTV Breakfast Show.

“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.”

Asked about her rejection of the 2018 job, she responded: “It is the best thing that ever happened to me, for me to decline going to Italy and the best thing that ever happened to me to come out of development to go into politics,” she stressed.

She expressed gratitude to the 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 aside having to cater for her kids added that her bedridden ex-husband was another reason she opted to leave active politics in order to attend to him.



She once contested the Bole Bamboi seat on the NPP’s ticket but lost to the NDC candidate, who had just succeeded John Dramani Mahama, later to become Vice President and President of the Republic.

I'm very angry with my government - Otiko Afisah Djaba, Former Gender Minister pic.twitter.com/fksDyohTa6

— Kafui Dey (@KafuiDey) May 2, 2023

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