Agyenim Boateng

Agyenim Boateng is a dual citizen of the United States and Ghana currently residing in Lexington, Kentucky U.S.A. He is a former Administrative Law Judge for the Transportation Cabinet of Kentucky and a former Deputy Attorney General for the State of Kentucky.^[1][2] He is also active in the United States wing of the New Patriotic Party of Ghana.

Education and training

He was educated at St Peter’s Boys School, Kumasi, Ghana, followed by secondary education at Asanteman Secondary School . He was the first Student Editor of The Porcupine. He passed the Cambridge School Certificate Exam (West African Examination Council) in 1959. In 1962, he passed the University of London General Certificate of Education Advanced Level examinations. He became a tutor at his alma mater for about three years before coming to the United States for further studies in 1964[1]

Boateng attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he obtained a B.A. in Government in 1966. He went on to achieve a Masters Degree in Political Science at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) in 1969. His master’s thesis was entitled: “Some Problems of National Integration in Ghana and Nigeria, 1957-66: A Case Study.”

Boateng attended Howard University School of Law, where he obtained a J.D. degree in 1973. His doctoral thesis was entitled: “Case Study of Forced Labor among Professionals in Europe and Africa: A Question of International Law on Human Rights”. While at Howard, he became the president of the Howard University Society of International law (HUSIL) and led the moot court team as its captain for the annual international Jessup Moot, organized by the American Society of International Law (ASIL), in which the team won the American regional championship.

Career

He worked as an Assistant Professor in Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama and also at Daniel Payne College in Birmingham, Alabama where he served as Assistant Professor of Political and Social Science. From 1973-74 he worked as a fellow Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer with Louisville Legal Aid Society.

Boateng then joined the Commonwealth of Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, served as a state attorney on various levels, and rose through the ranks to become Division Director of the Administrative Law Hearing Section, where he served as its chief Administrative Law Judge for 16 years. In 1998 he was appointed by the Attorney General for the Commonwealth as one of his assistants and later became his deputy and served that post until his retirement in January 2009. He is, since the fall of 2014, currently serving as an adjunct professor of American Government at Midway College, Midway, Kentucky.

Achievements

In 1973 he became a Reginald H. Smith Fellow, selected with 2000 other U.S. law school graduates to work as community Lawyers across the U.S. for various legal aid societies.

He was a member of the U.S. Ghanaian diasporans who went to Ghana in 2005 to lobby Parliament for the passage of Representative of the People’s Amendment Act 699' (ROPAA) that gave the right of Ghana diasporas to vote in Ghana's general elections and referenda from their places of residences, in 2005. He also drafted the necessary Regulations (Constitutional Instrument) for its implementation by the National Electoral Commission of Ghana (NEC) which failed to implement them.^[3]

Agyenim Boateng is now in private practice serving as legal and policy analyst consultant at his office in Lexington, Kentucky.

Awards

• Award for Excellence: Howard University (1973) University Team Captain and Oralist Students, International Law Moot Court Competition
• Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonel 2009 by Governor of Kentucky for meritorious service.
• Recognition award : The Senate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, July 7, 2012; For distinguish service to his family, community and his legal profession

Personal life

Boateng is from Atimatim, Kwabre District and belongs to the Ekuona clan of the Ashanti. He lives with wife Deloris and children Afua and Adu in Lexington.

Publications

1. Boateng, Agyenim “Lawyer as juror” Kentucky Bench and Bar, Frankfort, KY August 1989
2. Boateng, Agyenim “Judiciary as a force in nation building” Ghana Drum, Washington DC 3-part series Feb/May 1990
3. Boateng, Agyenim “Need for Judiciary Reforms” Ghana Drum 3-part series Feb/May, 1990
4. Boateng,Agyenim “Ghana’s Modern Judiciary and Democratic Governance” presented at a round table conference for Center on Democratic Development (CDC)
5. Boateng, Agyenim “Parliament versus the Judiciary”
6. Boateng, Agyenim “My testimony: Earlier Years at Asanteman”
7. Boateng. Agyenim “New Journalistic paradigm” www.ghanaweb.com Dec 12, 2004
8. Mensah-CNN “Profile of Dr. Agyenim Boateng”^[3]
9. Boateng, Agyenim “Equal Rights for Ghanaian Dual Citizens,” www.ghanaweb.com, May 11, 2007
10. Boateng, Agyenim “Ghana Dual citizen for Equal Rights; A Human Rights Issue” Ghana Web Oct. 21, 2008
11. Boateng, Agyenim"Demand for Equal Rights"^[4]
12. Boateng, Agyenim "Asantes of Ghana"^[5]

References