Ghana on Tuesday swore in president-elect John Mahama in the capital Accra before some 20 regional leaders as he promises to lift the West African gold and cocoa producer out of the doldrums.
Mahama won 56 percent of the vote in the nation’s presidential election on December 9, defeating ruling party candidate and Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, who secured 41 percent.
He takes over from outgoing president Nana Akufo-Addo, who served two terms in power.
“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.
Mahama was sworn in alongside Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, the first woman to become vice president in Ghana.
France24/Oluwabusayo Oyinloye
