Outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo, a former human rights lawyer who became head of state known for his diplomacy, barely won the presidential election on Monday, December 7, against his lifelong rival, John Mahama.
From our Accra correspondent,
The man has a gracious face and still wears small round Harry Potter glasses. He does not carry his age: the one who is today 76 years old will therefore be in his eighties at the end of this second period. Outside Ghana borders, Nana Akufo-Addo is known as the master of “Ghana Beyond Aid”, “Ghana beyond Aid”. He is one of the first leaders who has chosen to deliberately deprive himself of help from the IMF and foreign countries in order to increase his country’s growth on his own. In a highly published historical speech in 2018, during Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Accra, he asked Africans to “get rid of this mentality of addiction, this mentality that makes us wonder what France can do for us.”
Under his leadership, Ghana has regained a prominent place on the regional stage. Nana Akufo-Addo has led major mediation missions in Guinea and Togo, neighboring countries plagued by serious political and social crises. In 2019, he also made a big splash a campaign called “Return of the Year”, The Year of Return, which encourages Afro descendants from around the world and more specifically from the United States to “come back” to Ghana to visit its beaches, its natural parks and the sad monuments of the triangular trade.
Human rights lawyer, defender of democracy
The septuagenarian has something to keep. His father, Edward Akufo-Addo, was himself president in the late 1960s, and, like Kwame Nkrumah, he was part of the “Big Six”, the fathers of independence and the Ghanaian nation. Born in 1944 in the capital, Nana Akufo-Addo therefore grew up in a family of the national elite and immersed in politics from her early childhood, and her house regularly hosted meetings for her father’s party.
After studying in London, where he acquired and cultivated his British accent, Nana Akufo-Addo became a lawyer specializing in human rights, a profession he practiced between France and England. He condemns from Londonthe exaggerations of Kwame Nkrumah’s military regime, then returned to Ghana with the advent of democracy in 1992. Nana Akufo-Addo then joined the Liberal opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP). In the early 2000s, he entered the government as Minister of Justice, then Foreign Minister of John Kufuor. He gradually lost the 2007 election against John Atta Mills, since 2012 against John Mahama, before taking revenge on the same opponent in 2016.
“Economic revolution” and the fight against corruption, a mixed record
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Nana Akufo-Addo won over voters with two promises: to carry out an “economic revolution” to revive growth in Ghana, at half-mast at the end of John Mahama’s term, and to put an end to corruption, known for its flawlessness. integrity.
The first effort is mostly a success, at least for the first three years of his term. Thanks to a austerity policy, Nana Akufo-Addo manages to halve the state budget deficit. It is committed to liberalizing Ghana’s economy, in particular by reducing employers’ contributions, and investing in infrastructure and hydrocarbons. The President also strengthens the industrial sector, around the much-publicized initiative “One District, One Factory”. And in just a few months, Ghana will be one of the ten fastest growing countries in the world.
To finance this stimulus program and compensate for the end of IMF support, Nana Akufo-Addo adopts a massive debt strategy. Ghana’s public debt, exacerbated this year by the Covid-19 crisis, today represents more than 70% of GDP. Growth fell to less than 1%, the lowest level in 37 years.
Several challenges for the second semester
If her financial record is mixed, Nana Akufo-Addo was especially praised during this first period for her social activities, in particular the establishment of a free high school for all Ghanaians. But even for its good handling of the health crisis, the drastic measures adopted in March have made it possible to limit deaths due to Covid-19 to 326 deaths.
But for four years, the image of the white knight in the fight against corruption has deteriorated considerably. Nana Akufo-Addo’s presidency was infected many corruption and nepotism scandals, his government consisting of several family members. The latest scandal erupted during the presidential campaign in November last year with the resounding resignation of anti-corruption prosecutor Martin Amidu. He then accused Nana Akufo-Addo of obstacles in her work, which the presidency formally denied.
Aware of these weaknesses and the difficulties facing Ghana today, Nana Akufo-Addo abstained during this campaign of flamboyant promises, which he made in 2016. Her most urgent task should be to limit galloping inflation and increase public debt, solve the problem of youth unemployment. and regain the confidence of the Ghanaians. According to an Afrobarometer study from 2019, more than half of those surveyed felt that it had not significantly improved their standard of living.
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