Ghana elections: Mahamudu Bawumia’s ‘digital economy’ versus John Mahama’s ’24-hour economy’

Unable to get a job as an accountant since graduating five years ago, Ghanaian Nathaniel Qainoo has been forced to swap his calculator for a spanner.

The 29-year-old was busy repairing a taxi under the shade of a mango tree when the BBC met him at his home in the small town of Kasoa, about 30km (18 miles) from the capital Accra.

He often spoke of “the hardship” – a phrase that has become common in Ghana since the nation plunged into a deep economic crisis in 2022.

This was the year when the government defaulted on its debt repayments, international rating agencies downgraded Ghana’s creditworthiness to “junk status”, and inflation skyrocketed to 54%. To add to the woes of Ghanaians, their currency, the cedi, has lost 70% of its value in the past eight years.

This forced Ghana to secure a $3bn (£2.4bn) bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The economic recovery efforts have been costly, resulting in significant losses for pensioners and investors who held government bonds.

All this has made Mr Qainoo so despondent that he does not intend to vote in Saturday’s presidential and parliamentary elections, though the electoral commission is confident that voter turnout will be high.

“I don’t know how this country is going to be saved from this crisis,” Mr Qainoo told the BBC.

His mind is on emigrating to North America or Europe.

“I would like to leave the country, go outside, live better, work harder,” Mr Qainoo added.

He is not alone. Many young people – who make up almost 40% of the population, according to the 2021 census – want to quit Ghana.

They see few job prospects in a country with an unemployment rate of 14%.

So it is not surprising that the economy has dominated the election campaign.

The two main presidential front-runners are:

The two are vying to succeed President Nana Akufo-Addo. He is stepping down at the end of his two terms, with Ghanaians hoping for a smooth transfer of power to ensure that Ghana retains its reputation as stable democracy.

Contesting the election under the banner of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bawumia’s major handicap is incumbency.

Holding a masters in economics from the UK’s prestigious Oxford University, he heads the government’s economic management team, and the collapsing economy has tarnished his reputation as an “economic whizzkid”.

He was mocked in 2023 as “our Maguire” – a reference to Manchester United footballer Harry Maguire, who had been performing badly on the pitch at the time.