Ghana's President John Atta Mills died at age 68

 

The president of Ghana, John Evans Atta Mills, has died at age 68, the Ghana News Agency reports.
Mills, 68, was inaugurated in January 2009. He returned home on June 25 from the US where he had undergone gone a medical check-up.
Mills ran three times for president before being elected in the closest vote in the country's history on a platform vowing to reform the West African country.
Information Minister Baffour also declined to elaborate. "Yes, I can confirm (his death), but I can't say more," he said.
The President celebrated his 68th birthday on Saturday. Atta Mills was elected in a 2008 runoff vote and was to run for a second term in December. He campaigned on a platform of change, arguing that the western African country's growth had not been felt in people's wallets.
Atta Mills even put up posters of himself standing next to a photoshopped cutout of US President Barack Obama in an effort to emphasise that the Ghanaian stood for change.
The 2008 election was the third time that Atta Mills had run for president.
He spent much of his career teaching at the University of Ghana. He earned a doctorate from London's School of Oriental and African Studies before becoming a Fulbright scholar at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
Chief of Staff John Henry Martey Newman also addressed the nation on state-run television stations GTV and TV3, saying that Atta Mills died Tuesday afternoon at the 37th Military Hospital in Accra. Newman gave no details about the cause of Atta Mills' death.
Meanwhile,Ghana's vice president will be sworn in as the New president on Tuesday evening, hours after President John Atta Mills died unexpectedly, a parliament official in charge of proceedings told Reuters.
Ebenezer Djietror said Vice President John Dramani Mahama would be sworn in at 1800 GMT.
According to the country's constitution, Mahama will complete Mills's term that was due to end with elections in December.