Bio: Prime Minister Ingraham was born at Pine Ridge on the island of Grand Bahama, on August 4, 1947, the son of Isabella Laroda (nee Cornish) and Jerome Ingraham. He grew up at Coopers Town on the island of Abaco, and began his education at Cooper's Town Public School, later attending the Southern Senior School and the Government High School Evening Institute in Nassau.
Mr. Ingraham studied law in Nassau, was called to The Bahamas Bar in December 1972, and eventually became senior partner in the law firm of Christie, Ingraham and Company. Ingraham entered front-line politics in 1975, when he was elected to the National General Council of the then ruling Progressive Liberal Party. In 1976, Mr. Ingraham was elected National Chairman of the PLP and a member of that partys National Executive Committee. In 1977, still Chairman of the PLP, he was elected to the House of Assembly.
In Parliament, Mr. Ingraham served as Chairman of an investigative Select Committee on Influence, Peddling and Political Contributions. He was re-elected to Parliament in the general election of June 1982, and made Minister of Housing, National Insurance and Social Service. In 1982, he also became Chairman of The Bahamas Mortgage Corporation.
Ingraham represented The Bahamas at the independence celebrations in St. Kitts in 1983, and was an alternate delegate at the Conference of the International Development Bank in Uruguay in 1983, and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank between 1979 and 1984.
In 1984, in the midst of a Commission of Inquiry into and the attendant disclosures of corruption inside the government and the civil service, Ingraham was dismissed from The Bahamas Cabinet during an investigation of illegal drug-trafficking and trans-shipment through The Bahamas and expelled from the governing party in October 1986.
In 1987 general election Ingraham ran as an independent candidates and was elected. Mr. Ingraham joined the Official Opposition in April 1990, and was immediately appointed Parliamentary Leader. When the Leader of the Opposition, Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, died in May 1990, Mr. Ingraham was unanimously elected Leader of the Free National Movement and was appointed Leader of the Official Opposition on May 18, 1990, by the Governor-General and in June of 1990 he led his party to a by-election victory over the governing party.
On August 19, 1992, Mr. Ingraham led the Free National Movement to victory over the Progressive liberal Party ending the 25- year hold on power of former Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling. He is married to the former Delores Miller of Long Island, and they have five children.
Source: fnmbahamasfacts.com
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