The Sunday News
Accra — Ghana’s president John Mahama conceded defeat on Friday two days after a hotly contested election, seen as a test for a country generally viewed as a beacon of stability in West Africa.
Mahama called to congratulate opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo, whose supporters had already gathered outside his modest house as media had given him a clear lead after Wednesday’s polls.
“Yes, he has conceded defeat,” George Lawson of Mahama’s New Democratic Congress (NDC) party told AFP, after Wednesday’s nail-biting poll.
“He called to concede and we are ecstatic,” spokesperson Oboshie Sai Cofie of Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) told AFP.
In the end Akufo-Addo won the presidential election with 53 percent of votes cast, said the country’s electoral commission, whose head Charlotte Osei pronounced Akufo-Addo’s victory on Friday evening, calling it her “privilege”.
The erudite 72-year-old human rights lawyer’s victory tapped into an electorate fed up with economic fiascos and corruption scandals, on a platform promising to boost growth and deliver jobs.
In the garden of Akufo-Addo’s house in the country’s capital of Accra, a jubilant crowd — almost all in head-to-toe white, a symbol of victory — had been dancing on the lawn for hours.
At one point, they broke out in an enthusiastic a capella rendition of Ghana’s national anthem. — AFP
