There are some things in a republic that ought not to require three lawyers, a constitutional conference and an unusually creative reading of the English language.
Two terms mean two terms.
Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has sounded an important warning about Ghana’s presidential term limit. More importantly, he has tried to rescue the debate from becoming merely a conversation about President John Mahama. His argument is that the real issue is whether Ghana wants to retain the constitutional principle of presidential term limits, and what its removal or weakening might mean for democratic stability.
That distinction matters.
Article 66(1) provides that a President holds office for four years. Article 66(2) provides that a person shall not be elected to hold office as President for more than two terms.
The language appears simple.
But the constitutional argument should not rest on grammar alone.
Plain meaning is the starting point, not the entire case.
The Constitution does not say “two consecutive terms.” That omission matters. A court should be cautious about inserting words into a constitutional provision that the framers did not use. Indeed, the current debate raises the question whether the limitation applies only to consecutive terms or whether two presidential terms exhaust an individual’s eligibility.
That is a legitimate constitutional question.
But there is another question: what was the purpose of imposing the limit in the first place?
Here Asiedu Nketiah’s intervention becomes significant.
He has argued that Ghana’s term-limit system was introduced to strengthen democracy and facilitate peaceful changes of government. He has pointed to the departures of Jerry Rawlings and John Kufuor as examples of presidents leaving office under the constitutional arrangement rather than remaining simply because they retained political popularity.
That is the real test of a term limit.
It is not designed for the day when everyone agrees that a president should leave. It is designed for the day when the president remains popular, supporters want him to continue, the governing party sees political advantage in keeping him, and the Constitution nevertheless says: enough.
A constitutional safeguard that operates only when convenient is not much of a safeguard.
Article 290 strengthens this broader constitutional argument. It identifies Chapter 8, dealing with the Executive, as an entrenched part of the Constitution. That means changes to the constitutional architecture of executive power cannot be treated like an ordinary amendment to an ordinary statute. The Constitution deliberately places important restraints on political power behind a more demanding amendment process.
And there is a reason.
Presidential power has a peculiar appetite. It attracts patronage, influence, money and loyalty. A term limit is therefore not an insult to a president. It is a protection for the republic.
There is, however, a fair counterargument.
If the framers intended to prohibit a former president from returning after an interruption, why did they not say “two consecutive terms”? Democratic choice also matters. If a former president has served two terms, left office and later wishes to return, why should voters not be allowed to decide?
That argument deserves to be heard.
But elections determine who governs. They do not determine the limits of constitutional office.
The people elect a president under the Constitution. They do not elect a president above the Constitution.
Otherwise, every constitutional restriction becomes vulnerable whenever a sufficiently popular politician appears.
This is why Asiedu Nketiah’s position is larger than the immediate Mahama debate. He has insisted that the question concerns Ghana’s democratic system, not merely one individual’s political future.
That distinction matters because politicians change.
Today the argument may concern Mahama. Tomorrow it could concern an NPP president. The day after tomorrow, somebody whose name is not yet known nationally may benefit from the precedent.
The Constitution must therefore be written for the office, not for the occupant.
If “two terms” means only two consecutive terms, a president could potentially serve two terms, leave office, wait, return and serve again. The constitutional ceiling would then become something closer to a scheduling arrangement.
That deserves careful judicial consideration.
If Ghana wants a different rule, however, there is a constitutional route. Let the amendment process be followed. Let Parliament debate it. Let the entrenched-provision safeguards operate. Let Ghanaians decide where the Constitution requires their participation.
What we should not do is achieve through creative interpretation what properly belongs to constitutional amendment.
Ghana’s Fourth Republic has survived because presidents leave, governments change and the state continues. That peaceful succession is not a minor achievement. It is one of the republic’s most valuable constitutional habits.
Asiedu Nketiah’s warning therefore deserves to be separated from party politics and examined for what it reveals about the larger constitutional question.
The issue is not whether Mahama deserves another opportunity.
It is whether any president should become larger than the constitutional limit attached to the office.
No president is the Constitution.
No party is the Constitution.
No electoral victory is the Constitution.
The Constitution is larger than all of them.
Two terms mean two terms.
And if Ghana ever decides otherwise, let the Ghanaian people change the rule through the constitutional process, openly and deliberately.
That is how a republic protects both democracy and itself.
About the Author
Seth K. Awuku is a Ghanaian legal scholar, writer and public affairs commentator whose work examines power, institutions and the rule of law. He is Principal of Sovereign Advisory Ltd, Takoradi.
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