The contention that a President is limited by a consecutive tenure of two terms secures a third term for Mahama

The substance and intent of the action filed as Kenneth Kwabena Agyei Kuranchie v The Attorney-General in the Supreme Court as Suit No. J1/20/2021, on 30 June 2026 at 1:30 in the afternoon, allegedly for the interpretation of Article 66 (2) of the 1992 Constitution on whether a person who has been elected to the Office of President of Ghana, has served one term in office and is defeated at the next election is entitled upon his subsequent election to the Office of the President to serve two consecutive terms, is to seek a third term in Office for President Mahama, who was sworn in again as President on 7 January 2025. The attempt by the plaintiff, Mr Kuranchie, in an interview on Joy News’ PM Express with Evan Mensah to dispel the credible perception that he brought the action as a camouflage to “seeking a third term for President Mahama” is a hard sell by him.

Mr Kuranchie is reported to have stated that: “I’ve heard arguments about a third term. We are not seeking a third term for President Mahama. That is not about what we are doing.” But that is precisely the substance of his action in the Supreme Court, which opens the floodgate for President John Mahama and other successors to seek a third term in office as President.

The only person who was a President of Ghana and lost an election for a second consecutive four-year term in office as President is John Dramani Mahama when he was defeated in the 7 December 2016 presidential elections by former President Nana Akufo-Addo on grounds of perceived pervasive corruption in his government. John Mahama is the only former President under the 1992 Constitution to return to office after the eight-year term of his successor, who had truncated his ability to accomplish a second continuous four-year term in office as President. John Dramani Mahama also won his second four-year term on 7 December 2024 on grounds of perceived pervasive corruption in the government of former President Nana Akufo-Addo, under which the contesting candidate of the NPP was Mahamudu Bawumia, who served as the Vice-President to the Akufo-Addo government.

Mr Kuranchie does not mention President Mahama’s name or the history of his tenure as President of Ghana, but it is trite in conflict studies and analysis that every reasonable interacting social being approaches and interprets social phenomena with the background knowledge of lived social, p…