Perhaps, three is now the lucky number. President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria won the presidential election on the third time, Nana Akufo-Addo just did the same in Ghana.
Nana Akufo-Addo, 72, a British-educated lawyer and veteran statesman of the New Patriotic Party ended the eight rule of National Democratic Congress, triggered wild celebrations across much of the country.
The country’s election commission said Akufo-Addo received 53.8% of the vote, with Mahama on 44.4%. Mahama became president in July 2012 after the sudden death of the incumbent leader and was elected later in the year.
President John Mahama conceded defeat by calling the winner to congratulate him. The country had been under the grasp of tension since the conclusion of the election after nearly 48 hours in which the governing party had maintained the fiction that it could win, President Mahama called his opponent to concede. “We are the party of law and order,” he said, urging supporters to accept defeat calmly.
“If you are an incumbent in Africa, beware,” said Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, governor of Nigeria’s Kaduna state, and one of dozens of senior African figures who were in Ghana to monitor the elections. He praised a peaceful process, one rigorously monitored by civil society and improved by technology, as setting “the gold standard for elections in Africa”.
Johnnie Carson, former US assistant secretary of state for Africa, said: “This is about the most professionally run electoral process that I have seen in Africa in the last 20 years.”
In a low-key victory speech, Mr Akufo-Addo said: “There’s never been a more humbling moment in my life and I thank you, the good people of Ghana … I make a solemn pledge not to let you down.”
He promised to stifle corruption, get the economy going through tax cuts and business incentives and launch an industrial policy for Ghana.
The election turnout was around 70 per cent.
