- "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 of the election. We all have to make a deliberate decision to invest in the rule of law and uphold the integrity of the institution of the state."
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has commended his main opponent in the December 2020 election, John Dramani Mahama, for resorting to the Supreme Court to challenge the outcome of the polls, saying the action is in the interest of the country.
Delivering his last State of the Nation Address of his first term in office, the president said the decision to go to court was better than allowing opposition supporters to resort to violence.
He said: “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 of the election.
“We all have to make a deliberate decision to invest in the rule of law and uphold the integrity of the institution of the state.”
New ways of working
Akufo-Addo challenged the MPs listening to the State of the Nation Address to devise new ways of working together in the interest of Ghana following the election.
“The good people of Ghana have spoken. They have given Parliament almost equal strength on both sides of the House.
“We have no choice but to work with the consequences of the desires of the people. The House would have to be more accommodating of each other’s views and probably devise new ways of conducting its affairs in the interest of the good governance of our people,” he said.
Akufo-Addo expressed “gratitude to God and the electorate for a clear mandate” to continue with the good policies rolled out by his government in the past four years.
“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 president-elect said.
Voice of the people
“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.”
President Akufo-Addo told the MPs that the 7 December presidential and parliamentary elections were conducted in a free and fair manner.
“I said during the election campaign that it is my firm and passionate view that I should only be a president in a fairly conducted election, which I believe in all sincerity the election of 7 December was,” Akufo-Addo said.
Fred Dzakpata
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