John Mahama who took the oath of office as Ghana’s new president in a ceremony attended by world leaders said ”Today should mark the opportunity to reset our country.”
Maham was sworn in at Black Star Square in Accra, the Ghanaian capital on Tuesday.
The new president took over from Nana Akufo-Ado who succeeded him in 2017. Before Mahama’s swearing-in, Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang was inaugurated as the country’s first female vice president.
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The Chief Justice of Ghana Gertrude Torkornoo administered the oath of office at the event.
“Today should mark the opportunity to reset our country,” the 66-year-old new president, wearing the West African country’s national dress, told a jubilant crowd decked in the green, red, black, and white hues of his National Democratic Congress (NDC) party.
Energy radiated from Accra’s Black Star Square, as a sea of elate faces waved Ghanaian and NDC flags, chanted, and broke into spontaneous dance to the beat of drums and the blaring honk of vuvuzelas.
Among those present were Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Senegal’s Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Burkina Faso’s leader Ibrahim Traore, Kenyan President William Ruto, President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon’s Brice Oligui Nguema.
Presidents Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone and Mamadi Doumbouya of Guinea as well as former leaders and officials also attended the inauguration.
The duo won the election held in December with Mahama returning to the post he left seven years ago with a mission to revive Ghana’s ailing economy.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate polled 50 per cent of the votes to beat the then-vice president Mahamudu Bawumia of the ruling party.
He scored 6.3 million votes to beat Bawumia with a 1.7 million vote margin. Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had immediately conceded defeat in the election.
“The people of Ghana have spoken, the people have voted for change at this time and we respect it with all humility,” he said in a press conference.
On his X account, Mahama confirmed he had received Bawumia’s congratulatory call.
Mahama had ruled Ghana between 2012 and early 2017. He had previously failed twice to win back the presidency but in December’s election managed to tap into expectations of change among Ghanaians.
The economy became a major election issue after Ghana defaulted on its debt and entered into a $3-billion deal with the IMF.
Ghana has only just begun recovering from its worst economic downturn in years, with inflation peaking at 50 percent in late 2022 — although it has since fallen to 23 percent.
With a history of political stability, Ghana’s two main parties, the ruling NPP and the NDC, have alternated in power equally since the return to multi-party democracy in 1992.
The country of 33 million people is Africa’s top gold exporter and the world’s second cocoa producer.
Tinubu congratulates Mahama
President Tinubu has congratulated John Mahama on his swearing-in as Ghana’s president and said Nigeria will support the West African country.
Tinubu who was among world leaders at the event noted the friendship between him and Mahama, pledging Nigeria’s backing for Ghana.
“President John Mahama and I share a deep friendship. My dear brother, I am here to work with you,” Tinubu who was a special guest said in his remarks at the event.
“You know you can count on Nigeria’s support and goodwill whenever needed. We are your brothers and sisters. The bond is strong and cannot be broken.”
“It lays to bed the question of whether Ghana and Africa are capable of democratic and productive endeavours. Ghana has answered that question resoundingly,” Tinubu told the gathering in the sunny Accra.
“It is time that Africa’s critics stop forgetting the strides your nation, Nigeria, and others have made by continuing to ask us to prove ourselves. We have nothing to prove to anyone except ourselves.”
Tinubu extolled Mahama as a man of patriotic vision and substance.
“He loves his nation and its people to the core. He believes that your nation has a mission and intends for you all to fulfil it,” the Nigerian president said. “No one can ask more of a leader than that.”
“May your administration be a profound success and progress for you, Ghanaians, and our entire region,” he said told Mahama.
