Police officials in Ghana have apprehended over 100 people – all of whom are opposition supporters of the President-elect John Mahama – over acts of lawlessness.
The supporters of the newly elected president who want jobs have purportedly attacked some state institutions, stolen properties, and engaged in disturbances that left several police and military personnel injured.
The irate supporters had also set fire to two electoral commission offices due to a delay in announcing the results of Saturday’s elections and disagreements over some of the parliamentary results.
Mahama has since criticised the vandalism, asking President Nana Akufo-Addo and security agencies to “act decisively” in addressing the chaos.
Vice-President Bawumia, the defeated presidential candidate of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), had on the other hand, publicly asked the president-elect to reign in his supporters.
Mahama coasted to victory with 56.6% of the vote against Bawumia’s 41.6%, the biggest election margin seen in the country for 24 years.
The president-elect’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) also won a huge majority in parliament, clinching 186 seats against 76 for the NPP and four for independents. 10 seats still to be announced.
It is not uncommon in Ghana, for supporters of the winning party to take over state institutions demand for the incumbent government’s appointees to step down before the president-elect is sworn in.
This phenomenon is entrenched in the country’s ‘winner-takes-all politics’, where the party in power gains control of everything, including jobs and contracts.
There have been identical attacks during previous transitions which civil society has duly condemned.
So far, 106 people have been detained, including nine who were arrested on Tuesday over the burning of an electoral commission office in the Eastern Region.
Mahama is set to be sworn in on 7 January 2025.
