ACCRA, Ghana
Ghana’s newly-elected President John Dramani Mahama began his second term Tuesday by highlighting shifting dynamics in global alliances.
“The world in which Ghana exists today is not the same world in which we have lived under in other presidencies,” Mahama said in his inaugural address at the capital Accra’s Independence Square.
“There are tensions and conflicts that have not previously existed between nations. These tensions place pressure on alliances to decide where we will support,” he added, addressing climbing global tensions and the growing influence of BRICS — a growing bloc of emerging economies reshaping global economic governance.
BRICS, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and five other nations since it was established in 2009, accounts for 40% of the global population and 35% of GDP.
Underscoring the bloc’s rising influence, Mahama said, “In 2023, the BRICS percentage of wealth GDP was 33.7%. What does this mean to us in Ghana? What could it mean to our economy? Where do we fit in this geopolitical maelstrom?”
He stressed the importance of aligning the nation’s economic strategy with global trends to secure sustainable growth. Ghana’s economy, valued at $76.37 billion in 2023, recorded a year-on-year growth rate of 3.8% in the fourth quarter, including oil and gas, with non-oil growth at 3.4%.
Mahama, who won the election in early December with 56.7% of the vote, was sworn in alongside Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, Ghana’s first female vice president.
More than 20 African leaders, including Bola Tinubu of Nigeria, the head of 15-nation economic and political bloc ECOWAS, attended the ceremony. Outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo, in his farewell address, called for vigilance amid regional instability.
