Barker-Vormawor, who was finishing his undergraduate studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, when the request arrived, says he learned of it late one night from Raymond Atuguba—an associate of Mahama’s office.
With only hours to spare, he set aside sleep and crafted the speech that would later be hailed as a unifying message during a moment of national shock.
“I’m most proud of John Mahama’s address to Parliament after Mills died because I wrote that speech,” Barker-Vormawor recounted in a recent interview.
He described working through the night, “sleeping on the floor” as he put the finishing touches on the text that Mahama would read the following morning.
On his work, Barker-Vormawor said the speech’s strength lay in its ability to transcend partisan divides. “It’s the most bipartisan address I’ve ever heard,” he stated, explaining that he believed President Mills’s death should serve as an opportunity for collective renewal.
His own aspirations for the country, he said, were woven into the final version, which called for unity and hope amid grief.
President Atta Mills, Ghana’s third democratically elected leader, died on July 24, 2012, at Accra’s 37 Military Hospital, just three days after celebrating his 68th birthday.
Constitutionally, Vice President Mahama was sworn in that same day, later securing victory in the December 2012 general election.