Mahama’s last State of the Nation’s address badly timed – Amoako Baah

The timing for President John Dramani Mahama’s last State of the Nation’s address is wrong and must be reviewed, a political science lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Dr Richard Amoako Baah, has said.

Mr Mahama, in accordance with Article 67 of the 1992 constitution will deliver his last State of the Nation address on Thursday, 5 January, two days to the swearing in of president-elect Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

His address will herald the end of the life of the 6th Parliament of the fourth Republic, which would officially be dissolved on January 6, 2017.

Speaking on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class 91.3FM on Wednesday, 4 January, Dr Baah noted that the incoming president would be in a better position to tell Ghanaians the state of the nation two months after he takes office and not the outgoing president.

“We have to look at that again. The date is all wrong because the person is leaving office and you want that person to give you the state of the nation? No, it is the incoming person who should do it and then if you give him [incoming president] this date, he can’t do it because he doesn’t know. And so we should consider pushing it forward to maybe March so that if we have a situation like we have now, the new president will have at least two months to do an assessment of the state of the nation and tell us,” he stated.

“What do we expect President Mahama to say? If things are bad, we know it’s bad, is he going to say it’s good? What good is it,” he wondered.

“As soon as he finishes speaking [on Thursday] somebody else will come and take over. Shouldn’t it be that person who should come and tell us what [the state of the nation] really is instead of the one outgoing [president]? That is the problem, but that aside, I expect president Mahama to thank Ghanaians for giving him the opportunity. Apart from that, I don’t know exactly what he is going to talk about because he cannot say the economy is good because it isn’t,” Dr Baah said.