On the Question of a Third Term:  An Open Letter to President Mahama

Your Excellency,

With the deepest respect for your long and distinguished service to Ghana, I write as a citizen profoundly committed to the enduring strength of our democracy.

At a moment when your leadership is widely lauded, voices, some sincere, others opportunistic, have urged Your Excellency to consider a third presidential term. While often framed as tributes to your experience and leadership, these calls must be measured against the clear letter and enduring spirit of our 1992 Constitution.

If your authority will permit me, Article 66(2) is unequivocal: ‘A person shall hold office as President of the Republic of Ghana for not more than two terms of four years each:

The imperative “shall” admits no exception. Any alteration would require the extraordinarily rigorous process prescribed in Article 290: a two-thirds parliamentary majority, followed by a national referendum, and finally presidential assent, an intentionally high threshold, designed to shield the Republic from fleeting political ambition.

Your Excellency, History teaches us that limits are essential. Mature democracies worldwide treat presidential term limits as safeguards against the concentration of power. In the United States, even fervent supporters of former President Donald Trump acknowledge that the Twenty-Second Amendment renders a third term legally impossible without a formal constitutional amendment, a path universally regarded as politically unfeasible and institutionally perilous.

Africa’s own experience is a cautionary tale. Leaders who sought to evade or reset term limits – Guinea (Alpha Condé, 2021 coup), Niger (Mamadou Tandja, 2010 coup), Burkina Faso (Blaise Compaoré, 2014 uprising and exile) – almost invariably triggered severe instability, violence, or military intervention.

Even in neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire, President Ouattara’s constitutionally contested third term (enabled by a controversial reinterpretation of the 2016 Constitution) provoked boycotts, protests, and enduring political division. These are not abstract precedents; they are recent, regional warnings.

Our nation has distinguished itself as a beacon of democratic maturity precisely because we have respected, without exception, the principle of leadership renewal through the ballot box every eight years. To entertain any manoeuvre around Article 66(2), however artfully presented, would risk placing our hard-won stability in grave and unnecessary peril.

True statesmanship is measured not only by what one achieves in office, but also by the dignity and resolve with which one chooses to leave it. Some of history’s most revered leaders – George Washington, Nelson Mandela, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – are remembered not only for the progress they delivered, but for the honourable example they set by voluntarily stepping down.

By firmly and publicly closing the door on any third-term ambition, you would not diminish your legacy, you would immortalise it. You would reaffirm, in the clearest possible terms, that in Ghana, no individual, however accomplished, stands above the Constitution. You would strengthen our institutions, reassure investors and partners, inspire younger leaders, and silence those who cynically wait for any perceived weakness to undermine all you have built.

Please permit me to refer to Lord Acton’s warning which remains timeless: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The wisest leaders are those who recognise that the greatest service they can render their nation is to ensure that power remains temporary, accountable, and renewable only by the sovereign will of the people.

Your Excellency, the mantle of legacy rests in your hands. Ghana’s Fourth Republic has endured because each of our presidents, Rawlings, Kufuor, Mills, yourself, Akufo-Addo, has respected the two-term limit. Let that proud tradition continue unbroken under your watch.

With utmost respect, admiration, and unwavering faith in Ghana’s democratic future,

By Seth Kwame Awuku

Citizen of the Republic of Ghana

[email protected]

 

Editor’s note: Views expressed in this article do not represent that of The Chronicle

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