On the campaign trail, Ghana’s newly-elected president, John Dramani Mahama, criticised outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo for cozying up to the West instead of working closer with neighbouring Burkina Faso to curb security threats. In particular, he slammed Accra’s sharing of intel with the US and other allies on Ouagadougou’s security partnership with the Russian Wagner Group. He seemed to be hinting that, as president, he would seek to forge better relations with the trio of nations forming the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) – Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
Mahama, who has already been president once before of oil-, gold- and cocoa-rich Ghana, faced criticism during his first term (which came to an end in 2017) for putting the nation further in debt, with the export industry also suffering. During his tenure, the West African nation’s debt stock rose by nearly $6 billion. In 2022, under Akufo-Addo, Ghana defaulted on most of its $30 billion in external debt, according to Reuters.
Mahama said he plans to renegotiate IMF debt and seek additional loans to resume repayments. This would seem to be incompatible with closer ties to the AES, which, with its revolutionary, anti-imperialist agenda, is actively seeking to break away from dependency on predatory loans from western institutions such as the IMF.
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