Source:tolonradio.com/Hamza Lansah Lolly/Baba Issahaq Mohammed
FULL TEXT: President John Mahama’s speech at his January 7, 2025 inauguration.
The Right Honorable Speaker of PaHonorable Members of Parliament,
Her Excellency, the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Jane Nana Opoku-Agyemang,**
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Leadership, the Chief Justice,
Your Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and special guest of honor for this occasion,
Your Excellencies, Presidents, Heads of Government and Development Agencies,
Your Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo,rliament,
Former President, Your Excellency, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia,
Distinguished Invited Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, My Brothers and Sisters,
I wish you a good morning, and we give thanks to the Almighty God on this occasion.
Our Father, who art in heaven, we thank you for giving us this day, a day that offers me, Your humble servant, a unique opportunity to work to reset our dear country, Ghana.
32 years ago, on January 7, Ghana made its first and most successful democratic transition, a reset with the swearing-in of the newly democratically elected president, Jerry John Rawlings, of blessed memory. Our nation was returned to a multi-party democracy with a new constitution that went into effect, and the Fourth Republic was officially established.
I refer to it as a reset because, on that day in 1993, we made our fourth attempt at establishing a democratic system of government with term limits based on free, fair, and transparent elections. The handover of power on January 7, 2001, between former President Jerry John Rawlings and, at the time, the newly elected President John Agyekum Kufuor, tested that reset, and our nation passed with flying colors.
So today, with my induction as the new President of the Republic of Ghana, history is being made once again, and it is a history worth repeating every four years with each newly elected president.
Today, we’re also making a different kind of history, one that speaks to our maturity as a democracy, a nation of citizens enfranchised with the authority at the polls to determine their political future.
Today’s exercise between the outgoing president, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and I feels a bit like déjà vu. That is because eight years ago to this day, on January 7, 2017, we shared this same space and performed this same transitional exercise. At the time, I was the outgoing president, having served one term, and he was the incoming president, having been given a mandate by the people of Ghana to lead this great nation of ours. He and I both understood on that day, as I’m sure we do today, that it is the people of Ghana that we are elected to serve.
Somehow it seems fitting that it is with Nana Akufo-Addo that I twice shared this stage and this unique historical distinction because Nana Akufo-Addo and I began our national political careers in Parliament in the same year, 1996. He has always greeted me with a firm handshake and a smile, and he’s perhaps the only person in my life who has persistently chosen to call me Johnny.
While we belong to opposing political parties, we shared a sense of mutual respect. In those early days, we probably could not have imagined that destiny would bring us to the leadership of our respective parties and that we would have to face off three separate times as we each vied for the highest office of the land.
Nana, as this will be our final meeting under these circumstances, and as I look back on the journey we have traveled together, two much younger men entered Parliament together with a full head of black hair, and you with the same bald head and round eyeglasses, I have to say that you have, without exception, been a worthy opponent.
I extend my warmest wishes to His Excellency, the former Vice President, Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia. It was a grueling campaign, and we gave it our all. Your sportsmanship in making an early concession eased tensions and contributed to the early conclusion of the electoral contest. I wish you all the best in your endeavors.
My brothers and sisters, the world in which Ghana exists today as I begin this presidency is not the same world in which we have lived under other presidencies. There are tensions and conflicts that have not previously existed between nations. These tensions and conflicts place pressure on alliances to decide where we will support
.
