President Nana Akufo-Addo has predicted that the country is bound to have a female as president in the future.
Together with other African leaders, President Akufo-Addo said he is committed to waging a war against gender inequality in Ghana and across the African continent.
Speaking at this year’s edition of the Global Citizen Festival at the Independence Square, he stressed the need for African leaders to ensure that women are empowered and given fair treatment.
He added that his government is putting in place policies that will ensure that the girl child is encouraged to reach her full potential, something that can help the country to, one day, produce a woman president.
“Women and girls account for 51% of the population of Ghana, the majority and that is the same everywhere on the continent. So, empowering them is critical to speeding up Africa’s progress.
“As President of Ghana, as Co-Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and as AU gender champion, I am committed to put in place policies and programmes aimed at improving the development of the girl child in Ghana.
“I’m equally committed to ensuring access to a minimum of senior high school education for the girl child in Ghana, a policy that has already begun to work. Together we can achieve gender equality, empower the women and girls and achieve the global needs and goals of the Sustainable Development Goals, and one day, we are going to have a female President of Ghana,” he said amid cheers from the audience.
People have divergent views over the capabilities of women who wish to take up such a position and steer the affairs of the country.
In the 2020 general election, the National Democratic Congress chose Prof Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang to be their Vice-Presidential candidate, and this raised issues and debates among the political elites and even within the party.
In the same year, the Ghana Freedom Party had Madam Akua Donkor as its flagbearer.
Other women who contested the presidential position were Brigitte Dzogbenuku of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), and founder of the National Democratic Party, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.
In all of such instances, the women had very fewer chances of securing victory because many electorate prefer to have men occupy the position.
President Akufo-Addo’s statement would hopefully bring the conversation again on the need for the country and the continent to begin pushing women to higher places.
Meanwhile, he pledged to end child marriages in the whole of Africa.
