The Ghanaian politician and presidential candidate for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has taken his campaign to Russia with what observers see as a curious launch of his 2012 autobiography in Russian in Russia.
The move has created considerable concern among the intelligentsia, who believe there is mounting evidence that the former Ghanaian president is promising to deepen ties with Russia if he wins the election in December 2024.
Since the book was published 12 years ago, there has been no release in any language other than the original English before this version in Russian.
John Mahama’s autobiography, My First Coup d’État, was first launched in New York in the United States of America on 11 July 2012, when he was vice-president. Thirteen days later, President John Evans Atta Mills died, paving the way for Vice-President Mahama to finish the unexpired term of the demised Mills.
John Mahama went on to win the election of December 2012 but lost the subsequent two. Election 2024 will be his third attempt to win a second term.
Flirting with Russia
In what some critics see as his desperation to raise funds for the NDC campaign, Mahama has been on several foreign trips and has been making promises to potential donors.
Even though Ghanaian law makes it a criminal offence for foreigners to donate to elections in Ghana, politicians are known to flout it.
Sources in Russia claim that this renewed flirtation with Moscow (the former president Mahama studied social psychology in the Russian capital in the 1980s) is about a quid pro quo – to receive funding for his electoral campaign in return for allowing Ghana to become a strategic ally in President Vladimir Putin’s bid to acquire greater influence and control over developments in Africa.
Russia also has its eye on Africa’s rich mineral and natural resources.
Reporting by Wilberforce Asare in Accra
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