Jean Mensa, EC chair
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo yesterday filed his nomination forms at the Electoral Commission to run again as President of the Republic of Ghana.
It would be his fourth run, having fought the 2008, 2012 and 2016 elections based on good governance and industrial transformational agenda.
As most Ghanaians would recall, both the 2008 and 2012 elections were tight and controversial, with the 2012 ending up in court and giving Ghana and struggling John Dramani Mahama the benefit of the doubt.
Voice of the people…
Still dreaming a bigger, better and transformed Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo succeeded in having the hearts, minds and souls of Ghanaians in winning a 2016 landslide victory, proving that the Mahama slot had all along been plastic and skewed, irresponsible and incompetent.
From health and education through agriculture and industry to job creation and management of the energy sector, corrupt and greedy Mahama failed to show initiative and leadership. As his tenure revealed, his only interest as a politician, leader and president was evident in scams in which appointees as well as family members and business cronies failed to be agents of good governance and transformation, and rather cut a sorry image of themselves as crooks.
“Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” within less than four years, the government, under President Nana Akufo-Addo, has proved that a serious government, after inheriting doom and gloom, can transform a typical John Mahama legacy to the pinnacles of remarkable economic growth, global recognition and partnerships, as evident in the oncoming business post-COVID deal with the government and people of Netherlands.
This is apart from similar cutting-edge global business partnerships with Israel, China, Japan, among others, in industry, which is expected to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs and improve lives and livelihoods.
Free SHS
Particularly for the Free SHS programme, the masterstroke social protection programme has touched every family, home, community, district and region in Ghana, attracting governments, both in Africa and developed economies, as has the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which was initiated by ex-President JA Kufuor and enhanced by incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo.
To think that this was a government whose major responsibility was to return Ghana to the eight per cent growth away from the Mahama slump, it should be magnanimous that the Nana Akufo-Addo administration has won international recognition, not only for giving Ghana and the world best economic growths but also engineering the economic superstructure to dramatically affect lives and livelihoods.
Barely sixty days more into the crucial presidential and parliamentary elections, no sane and sober Ghanaian would claim that we wasted our ballots bringing in the then NPP flagbearer as President of Ghana.
Credible elections
It is against this background that the President’s message to the Electoral Commission to the effect that the organisation conducts itself appropriately has utmost relevance.
Since 1992, we have witnessed situations where the verdict has been controversial to the hilt, with incumbent governments attempting to skew the processes and the EC structures and operatives acting complicit in the political acts of dishonesty.
While the Daily Statesman expects the electorate to go out and vote according to their conscience and in recognition of the records of the two leading political parties, we would also expect all the elections stakeholders, including civil society, the media, security agencies and the Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), to put Ghana first in contributing their quota to make the elections transparent, peaceful and credible.
It is a national and collective duty we cannot afford to ignore.
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