Ghana must follow Nigeria's example: Make Mahama one-term president

NPP Presidential candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says Nigeria has presented Ghanaians with an example to follow in limiting President Mahama to one-term in office.

“Nigeria showed the way last year…we hope this will turn out into a lesson Ghanaians can learn from our neighbours that change is sometimes needed after just one full term”.

His call for change is expected to get louder as Ghana enters the election season.

It is an election with very high stakes. One thing is certain, that records will be made and records broken with several sub-plots surrounding this year’s elections.

A win consigns the opposition NPP to a record 12 years in opposition and opens a record 12-year mandate for the NDC since 1992 when the country returned to democratic rule.

A loss for the NDC will make President John Mahama the first president to lose re-election bid.

Although his party has been in government for eight years, the President is finishing his first term.

Then Vice President John Mahama became president after President John Atta Mills died in July 2012, barely four moths to the election. Mr. Mahama won and continued in office.

Armed with these sub-plots, the NPP Presidential candidate Akufo-Addo told a conference that Ghana’s recent political background is similar to Nigeria’s situation.

In Nigeria, Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan also became President after his boss, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, died 5 May 2010.

But Nigerians stopped Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election bid with a victory for three-time presidential candidate Buhari, who led the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“What we in the NPP have to do, like the APC did in Nigeria, is to mobilize majority of Ghanaians to ensure that there is no automatic second term for a non-performing government,” he said.

Nana Akufo-Addo explained that there is enough evidence in Ghana’s socioeconomic life to justify the need for Ghanaians to limit President John Mahama to one-term in office.

He said under President Mahama’s leadership, Ghana's story is a tale of widespread despondency, low real wages, collapsed businesses and unemployment.

Ghana has also degenerated into a by-word for corruption, he said.

According to the NPP leader, this situation has created what he referred to as “anxious moods” that research shows are signals the end for democratic governments.

It was this anxious mood that preceded the demise of the Goodluck Jonathan administration in April 2015, he argued.

He dismissed government’s catalogue of achievements as a book containing artistic impressions of non-existent projects and projects initiated by the NPP when it was in power between 2001 to 2008.

Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com