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 said, after Wednesday’s nail-biting poll. “He called to concede and we are ecstatic,” spokesman Oboshie Sai Cofie of Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) said. In the end Akufo-Addo won the presidential election with 53 per cent of votes cast, said the country’s electoral commission, whose head Charlotte Osei pronounced Akufo-Addo’s victory 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. Outside in the streets, a crowd of hundreds dressed in NPP colours of red, white and blue blowing horns and whistles had been gathering for hours. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
