Ghanas President Rises to the Occasion July 12, 2014. By Emily Cadei Share on facebookShare on FacebookShareShare on twitterShare on TwitterTweetShare on emailShare by EmailEmail Why you should care A rare stable democracy in Africa, Ghana may be just what Africa needs to produce regional leaders able to address issues from terrorism to infectious disease. Crisis sometimes tosses up a leader. Like when Islamist rebels kidnapped hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls in May, spreading furor quickly around the globe. And neighboring countries fretted that violence from the perpetrators, Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamist group, would cross borders. Into the void stepped Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama, who took the initiative to convene an emergency meeting of regional security officials in May to better coordinate the response. Stepping up’s starting to look like a pattern. Until a few years ago Mahama was a just a young politician from the country’s sparsely populated north and little known outside of Ghanaian political circles. But in 2014, people far beyond this West Africa nation of 25 million are starting to learn his name as he takes on more and more leadership responsibility in the region. Come August, the 55-year-old leader will be one of the stars at President Barack Obama’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, given Ghana’s leading role in every major American development program at work in Africa. The coup d’état that unseated our first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah … marked the awakening of my consciousness. It’s not just the Boko Haram crisis. Mahama’s government just hosted health ministers from 11 African countries to try address the region’s Read more: President John Mahama Leads the Way in West Africa | Rising Stars | OZY
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 23:22:21 +0000
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