The President of the Ghana Paralympics Committee, Samson Deen has arrived in Ghana after being elected as the new president of the Africa Paralympics Committee in the last General Assembly in Rabat, Morocco.
He arrived in Ghana on November 3, 2021, at the Kotoka International Airport with the Deputy Sports Minister, Evans Bobie Opoku, who was also in Rabat to support his bid.
Samson Deen polled 24 of the total votes cast, beating Morocco’s Hamid El Aouni who polled 15 votes. Samson Deen will replace the outgoing APC boss, Leonel da Rocha Pinto, who has been in charge for 13 years.
The 41 delegates (38 who voted in-person and 3 who voted virtually) comprised of Presidents and General Secretaries of National Paralympics committees on the continent.
“I want to say a big thank you to the Sports Minister, but my biggest gratitude goes to the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo. Without him, I doubt I would have won this election,” he stated.
“While I was in Morocco, I faced a lot of challenges but with the help of Nana Addo, I got the support of Ghana. He brought the Deputy Sports Minister [to support] my agenda and it is through him that I am now the president. He believed in me and gave me the platform to show that indeed, a Ghanaian can do the job for the whole African continent,” he concluded.
Ghana is aiming to become the first country to host the African Games alongside an African Paralympic Games in 2023 and Deen’s election is viewed as a huge boost to achieving that.