John Mahama sworn in as president of Ghana, promises to “reset” the country | Politics news

With about 20 African leaders in attendance, the 66-year-old was sworn in as Ghana’s president for the third time.

John Mahama was sworn in for a second term as Ghana’s president at a ceremony in the capital Accra, with about 20 African leaders in attendance.

Mahama won 56 percent of the vote in the nation’s December 9 presidential election, defeating the ruling party’s candidate and Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, who secured 41 percent.

Mahama will replace outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo, who served two terms in power.

“Today should mark the opportunity to reset our country,” the new 66-year-old president, wearing the West African country’s national dress, told a cheering crowd decked out in green, red, black and whites of his National Democratic Congress (NDC) party on Tuesday.

Energy radiated from Accra’s Black Star Square as a sea of ​​elated faces waved Ghanaian and NDC flags, sang and broke into spontaneous dance to the beat of drums and the blaring horn 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, Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi and Gabon’s Brice Oligui Nguema.

Mahama, 66, was sworn in alongside Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, the first woman to become Ghana’s vice president.

Mahama’s return to the presidency ends eight years in power for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) under President Nana Akufo-Addo, whose last term was marked by Ghana’s worst economic turmoil in years, a rescue from the International Monetary Fund and a debt default. .

Mahama, who led Ghana from 2012 to early 2017, had previously failed twice to regain the presidency. But in the December elections, he was able to exploit the expectations of change among Ghanaians.

On Black Star Square, supporters of the elected leader exuded joy, hope and optimism.

“I have never been so proud to be Ghanaian,” Akosua Nyarko, 28, a teacher from the southern city of Cape Coast, told the AFP news agency. “The energy here is amazing… This is the dawn of a new era!”

Mohammed Abubakar, a 50-year-old farmer from Tamale in northern Ghana, said he was confident Mahama would prioritize rural development.

“Coming here to Accra for this historic event is a dream come true,” the farmer said, adding that “Mahama’s leadership gives me hope that my children will have a better future.”

A writer and devotee of Afrobeat music, Mahama wrote in his memoir – My First Coup, and Other True Stories from Africa’s Lost Decades – that he was changed by his childhood experience during a coup 1966 military.

He was born in northern Ghana as a child of privilege, his house is the only one in the country with a diesel generator.

His father, who served as a junior government minister, was briefly arrested and interrogated by the leaders of the 1966 coup, but later released unharmed.

Mahama was also a member of parliament and chairman of the West African Caucus at the Pan African Parliament in Pretoria.

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 leading gold exporter and the world’s second largest producer of cocoa.