Portal:Guinea/Featured biography/2
Louis Lansana Beavogui (28 December 1923 – 19 August 1984) was a Guinean politician. He was Prime Minister from 1972 to 1984 and was briefly interim President in 1984.
Beavogui, a member of the Toma ethnic group, was born in Macenta, located in southern Guinea, and he was trained in the Senegalese city of Dakar to become a medic. He was elected as Mayor of Kissidougou when he was 31 years old, and he was elected to the National Assembly of France in January 1956 as one of three deputies representing French Guinea. Under President Ahmed Sékou Touré, Beavogui was appointed to the government as Minister of Economic Affairs and Planning when Guinea gained its independence in 1958, and he was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1961. After the Guinean government allowed Kwame Nkrumah, the ousted President of Ghana, to live in exile in Guinea, the authorities in Ghana detained Beavogui at the airport in Accra while he was on his way to Ethiopia for a conference of the Organization of African Unity in October 1966. He remained Foreign Minister until May 1969, when he was moved back to his position as Minister of Economic Affairs.