page_title: John Atta Mills
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: John Atta Mills / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: First Lady of Ghana Ernestina Naadu Mills meets United States First Lady Michelle Obama at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on 8 March 2012
context_page_description: John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills was a Ghanaian politician and legal scholar who served as President of Ghana from 2009 to 2012. He was inaugurated on 7 January 2009, having defeated the ruling party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 election. Previously he was Vice-President from 1997 to 2001 under President Jerry Rawlings, and he stood unsuccessfully in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections as the candidate of the National Democratic Congress. He is the first and only Ghanaian head of state to die in office.
context_section_description: He was married to Ernestina Naadu Mills (née Botchway), an educator, and had a son, Sam Kofi Atta Mills. He was raised a Protestant in the Methodist tradition.
  He was a distant cousin of the prominent Gold Coast lawyer, Thomas Hutton-Mills, Jr. He was a good friend to T. B. Joshua of The Synagogue, Church of All Nations in Lagos, Nigeria and regularly visited his church. He said, following his inauguration, that Joshua had prophesied that it would take him three elections to win the presidency and that the result would be released in January.
  As a sports administrator, he contributed to the Ghana Hockey Association, National Sports Council of Ghana, Ghana Olympic Committee and Accra Hearts of Oak Sporting Club. He was one time the chairman. He enjoyed field hockey and swimming, and once played for the national hockey team (he remained a member of the Veterans Hockey Team until his death). He was also a board member of Hearts of Oak, the former chairman of the Black Stars management team and a Manchester United fan.
caption: First Lady Ernestina Mills, wife of John Atta Mills, with Michelle Obama in 2012
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