The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said it will not recognise President Nana Akufo-Addo as the legitimately elected President of Ghana until all their reservations with the recently-held polls are duly dealt with.
“Let me state clearly and unequivocally that notwithstanding the inauguration of Mr Akufo-Addo as President of Ghana, the NDC shall not; and I repeat: shall not recognise Mr Akufo-Addo as the legitimate President of the Republic of Ghana until all the issues surrounding his flawed election are satisfactorily resolved”, General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, told journalists on Friday, 8 January 2021.
President Akufo-Addo and his Vice, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, were sworn in for a second term on Thursday, 7 January 2021.
The ceremony, which took place at the forecourt of Ghana’s Parliament in the national capital, Accra, was graced by several heads of states and representatives of other nations but boycotted by the NDC and its presidential candidate, former President John Mahama.Chief Justice Anin Yeboah first administered the Oath of Office of Vice-President to Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and then administered the Oath of Office of President to Nana Akufo-Addo.
Out of the 13,119,460 total valid votes cast in the recently-held polls, President Akufo-Addo of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) polled 6,730,587 votes, representing 51.302 per cent.
Former President Mahama of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), who was his closest contender, polled 6,213,182 votes, representing 47.359 per cent.
Mr Mahama and the NDC are, however, contesting the results.
They have described it as a “fictionalised” and “stolen” verdict.
The party has held several demonstrations across the country to drum home its claim that the election was flawed and skewed in favour of President Akufo-Addo and the NPP.
Some of the demonstrations have been violent.
Mr Mahama filed a petition at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, 30 December 2020, to challenge the declaration of the results.
In the last State of the Nation Address (SoNA) of his first term, President Akufo-Addo told Parliament on Tuesday, 5 May 2020, that: “I am thankful to the Ghanaian people and to the Almighty that I have been given a clear mandate to govern the country for four more years, and, thereby, given the opportunity to complete tasks, consolidate some of the far-reaching measures we have introduced, and initiate further changes and adjustments to policies and practices”.
“The Constitution demands that we go to the people after four years to ask for a mandate, and we must listen to the voice of the people. I said during the election campaign, and it is my firm and passionate view, that I should only be President in a fairly conducted election, which I believe, in all sincerity, the election of 7th December was”, he noted.
“I recognise that my main opponent in the election, former President John Mahama, has gone to the Supreme Court to seek its intervention, and grant reliefs that, he believes, were compromised in the conduct of the elections. It is good for the nation that, in the end, he chose the legal path, instead of the pockets of violence that have attended the rejection of the results by his party in the period after the elections. We all have to make a deliberate decision to invest in the rule of law and uphold the integrity of the institutions of state, so that no person or group of persons take the law into their own hands with impunity”.
