Presidential Advisor Joyce Bawah Mogtari says she agrees with growing public sentiment that former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo should not have sought a second term in office, arguing that leadership sometimes requires the humility to step aside.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Mogtari said many Ghanaians have come to reassess the trajectory of Akufo-Addo’s presidency, particularly the tone and priorities of his first term.
“I do believe, as many have actually come to conclude, that maybe after his first time he really should have left office,” she stated.
According to her, a significant portion of Akufo-Addo’s early years in power was spent undoing or publicly discrediting the work of his predecessor rather than consolidating national progress.
“I remember he spent a lot of the first few years literally attacking everything that his predecessor had done or hadn’t done,” Mogtari said.
She contrasted this approach with what she described as focused leadership that commits fully to a vision, citing infrastructure development under former President John Dramani Mahama as an example of long-term thinking.
“That investment didn’t even make sense to them. There were a lot of criticisms of that project. But today, it is the one project that I believe actually symbolises what a leader can achieve when they set their mind to it.”
For Mogtari, leadership is not merely about holding power but about making decisions that endure beyond personal or partisan interests.
