Ghana's president-elect urges respect for democracy

Ghana’s president -elect Nana Akufo-Addo has warned that African leaders who reject democracy are “fighting the tide of history”.

The president elect praised the democratic gains made in Ivory Coast and Nigeria but expressed concern over the situation in The Gambia.

“What is taking place in the Gambia is unfortunate, I don’t have access to the full details of what is happening but in the little that I have read and the snippets suggest that somehow some confusion is about to emerge, and the rest of us in the region have an obligation to try and find a way to get a handle on the situation and restore normalcy there. I believe that those who are going against the idea of competitive politics, electoral politics, are fighting the tide of history in West Africa and in the general African region’‘, he said.

Akufo-Addo won the election on a wave of anger over corruption, an ailing economy and soaring debt.

Chief among his many campaign promises was to fix the economy, create jobs and opportunities and work to strengthen the local currency, the cedi.

“The measures that we want to take to stimulate enterprise growth in our country and get Ghana working again, making things here in Ghana. We want to bring a shift in the paradigm in the way we look at problems.
We’re going to do so in a difficult situation, there is hanging national debt of considerable proportions, but if we succeed from the get-go in getting these measures to go and we see the beginnings of growth in the economy that is also the best way we can deal with the issue of our debt”.

In his victory speech, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo pledged to put Ghana “back on the path of progress and prosperity.

AFP