Ghanaians have been celebrating the election of their former President and opposition candidate, John Dramani Mahama, after their presidential election that took place on December 7, 2024. Their joy stemmed from the fact that their votes counted. Disenchanted by the poor economy and the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, voters rallied round and voted out the ruling party candidate and outgoing Vice-President, Mahamudu Bawumia.
The election saw a voter turnout of over 60 per cent. The collation of results was devoid of the manipulations that usually characterize the Nigerian elections. There might have been a few malpractices here and there, but they were too insignificant to affect the outcome of the election. At the end, Mahama, 65, who was President between 2012 and 2017, got 6.3 million votes (56.5 per cent of votes cast) to defeat his main opponent, Bawumia, who got 4.6 million votes (41 per cent). Mahama’s party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) also won the majority in parliament. Even before the Ghana Electoral Commission announced the official result on Monday, December 9, 2024, Bawumia had conceded defeat and congratulated Mahama.
In his victory speech, Mahama said the last eight years under the outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had left a scar on the country’s national psyche which might take some time to erase. He added, “We want a Ghana that considers the well-being of all her citizens and affords them each the ability to live a life of dignity, a life of limitless opportunity.”
We commend Ghanaians, especially the Ghana Electoral Commission headed by Jean Mensa for this feat. It is rare to have such a smooth election in Africa. Usually, incumbents are reluctant to leave power. They do everything possible to rig elections and remain in power. In some countries like Uganda, Cameroon, Rwanda, and Equatorial Guinea, among others, incumbent Presidents even manipulated their constitutions to remain in power.
But this is gradually changing in Africa. We have also had credible elections in places like Senegal and Liberia where opposition candidates won the ruling party candidates. In the presidential election held last year in Liberia, George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) lost as then incumbent President to the candidate of the Unity Party, Joseph Boakai. Like Ghana’s Vice-President, Weah conceded defeat and congratulated the winner even before the final official result was announced. The turnout of that election was 65.77 per cent.
Nigeria has huge lessons to learn from her West African neighbours. It is supposed to be the leading light in the sub-region, but so far, it has failed to lead by example. With the exception of former President Goodluck Jonathan, no incumbent President has ever lost election in Nigeria. Our elections are usually characterized by violence, thuggery, vote-buying, intimidation and harassment of voters as well as manipulation of the result collation process. In the previous republics, this had resulted in some crises that led to the intervention of the military.
In the 2023 presidential election, the same malpractices took place. Many voters were suppressed in some states. Violence and vote-buying were widespread. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not disappoint with its laxity and incompetence. It was such that a lot of voters were technically disenfranchised either due to what the electoral umpire called technical glitches or some other logistics problems. At about 28 per cent, the turnout of voters in Nigeria’s presidential election of 2023 turned out to be the lowest since the advent of this democracy in 1999.
It was ironical that the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, congratulated Ghana and said the country copied Nigeria’s electoral model. The backlash he got from that statement should tell him how the majority of Nigerians feel about electoral processes in Nigeria.
Election is the major power the citizens have against an inept government. This is what obtains in many advanced democracies like the United States of America where we borrowed our presidential system of government from. In the last presidential election held early last month, former President Donald Trump defeated the ruling party’s candidate, Vice-President Kamala Harris, to stage a comeback to the White House. The US citizens felt disgusted with the economy and some other problems and decided to vote out the ruling Democratic Party. In the United Kingdom, the general election held on July 4, 2024 saw the then opposition Labour Party candidate, Keir Starmer, edging out the Conservative Party’s Rishi Sunak from power.
We had called for electoral and political reforms in Nigeria. If Ghana, Senegal and Liberia could get it right, there is no reason Nigeria should continue to fail in the conduct of elections. No system is manipulation-free. Politicians will always try to circumvent the process to gain undue advantage over their opponents. But with a truly independent and competent electoral umpire and deployment of technology in our electoral processes to prevent manipulation of results, our votes will begin to count. Let’s begin the change by making electronic voting compulsory.