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| - Claim: Former President Mahama wants to come and change the constitution to run for 30 years
Source: Twitter user
Verdict: FALSE
Researched by Gifty Tracy Aminu
Has former President John Mahama proposed a review of Ghana’s constitution to allow an extension of the tenure for the president?
“4 years not enough for a government; I will review the constitution when I become the President again,” a verified Twitter account on June 8, 2023, has attributed this quote to the leader of the opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC).
A short video clip of former President Mahama in an in-studio interview on Voice of America (VOA), was posted on Twitter together with the quote, which has since received more than 100 interactions.
On January 31, 2023, the same Twitter user shared a similar video and captioned it: “John Mahama wants to come and change the constitution to run for 30 years,” which has since garnered more than 16,000 views on Twitter.
This fact-check report seeks to verify the accuracy of the claim.
Fact-Check
As part of this research, GhanaFact looked for the full interview former President John Mahama granted Haydé Adam of the VOA on October 12, 2022, and found the 19 minutes and 27 seconds long interview had been posted on VOA Africa’s verified YouTube channel.
Nowhere in the interview assessed by GhanaFact did the former President say he plans to change the constitution so he will be able to run the country for 30 years.
During the interview, the former President highlighted some challenges confronting the Ghanaian economy and why it is necessary to make some changes to the constitution to ensure growth.
In response to a question from Haydé Adam about what he (John Mahama) would do differently if given the mandate as President again, the former President made the following submission from 5 minutes and 22 seconds to 6 minutes and 28 seconds of the complete video.
“One of the things that we will do… is to strengthen state institutions, strengthen the anti-corruption institutions, but most importantly, look at the constitution again. We’ve been operating this constitution for more than 26 years and I think that the time has come for us to look at it again and do some tweaking in order that we can have a more proper constitutional environment in which to grow the economy. And so, those are some of the things we would look at…”
“We have a four-year term like they have in America. Not like in other countries, where they have five (year) terms. So, there is very little you can do in terms of infrastructure, we will do our best, invest in the health sector, invest in education, invest in the economic infrastructure. But all this must be geared towards creating opportunities for especially young people to be able to realise their full potential, to be able to find jobs in the economy. I think that is what we will be looking at,” the former President said in the interview.
Verdict
The claim attributed to former President Mahama is FALSE.
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