Because of this, he is credited with breaking the so-called "culture of silence" which marked the regime of President Jerry Rawlings, who had served continuously since 1981.
[2] The lectures, originally held in the British Council Hall in Accra, were published in 1998 as The Ghanaian Sphinx: The Contemporary History of Ghana 1972–1987.
In the subsequent 1992 presidential election, Boahen was the New Patriotic Party (NPP) nominee, with Roland Issifu Alhassan as his running mate for vice president.
[1] In the 1996 presidential election, John Kufuor stood instead as the candidate for the NPP and fared somewhat better than Boahen, receiving 39.6% of the vote.
Politically, he described himself as "a liberal democrat, a believer in the freedom of the individual, the welfare of the governed, and in private enterprise and the market economy".
[6] His roots can be traced down to Osiem, a village in the Eastern Region of Ghana where his place of residence has been given the area council building.
His son Charles Adu Boahen was appointed deputy minister of finance in Ghana in 2017 by President Nana Addo Akufo-Addo.