Ghana’s President-elect, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, has expressed his profound gratitude to Ghanaians for bestowing the leadership of the nation into his care.
He also admitted the daunting hurdles he surmounted to become the third President under the Fourth Republic. He is due to be sworn in on January 7, 2009.
Addressing teeming supporters at his campaign office at Kuku Hills, Accra, after he was declared the winner of the presidential runoff by Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Prof. Mills said the journey he covered so far “has been a long struggle”.
Prof. Atta Mills, the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), defeated his close contender, Nana Akufo-Addo of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), by a margin of 40,586 votes.
The President-elect polled 4,521,032 representing 50.23% of total votes cast of 9,001,478; NPP’s Nana Addo had 4,480,446 which represents 49.77%. More than 90,000 ballots were rejected.
Gratitude
Prof. Atta Mills was grateful to the Almighty God for seeing him through those hard times “to come to the end of the road” as the victor.
He showed his appreciation to President John Agyekum Kufuor for his intention to handover power to him (Mills).
He also thanked supporters and sympathizers of the party for sacrifices made and rallying behind him to victory.
Prof. Mills assured Ghanaians that he would be “president for all” devoid of any “discrimination”. He used the memorable occasion to dispel fears of witch-hunt being harbour by some political opponents and assured that “Atta Mills would be father to everybody”.
He told his jubilant supporters that even though they have the cause to celebrate, it should be done with “circumspection” in order not to “provoke” others; but he challenged them to prepare for the task ahead of the party to “build a better Ghana”.
He said today’s victory is just a “step in a journey of million miles” and therefore called for God’s “wisdom, unity and guidance” to govern the nation.
He reminded Ghanaians to eschew divisive acts that would distract the development of Ghana; and should know that there is only one Ghana.
“There is no NDC Ghana, there is no NPP Ghana or CPP Ghana, there is one Ghana,” he remarked.
Prof. Mills also congratulated seven other candidates who contested the December 7 presidential election; for Nana Akufo-Addo, he congratulated him for “giving us a good fight”.
He called on all Ghanaians to come together, work together to help achieve his objective of building a better Ghana.
The Electoral Commission, the security agencies and the media were not left in his praise list for helping to “achieve objectivity and transparency”.
Story by Isaac Essel
