After the UN Speech, September 2026

My president is John Dramani Mahama. For the first time in my adult life, I claim a sitting head of state as my president. No president in perfect, and Ghanaian politics is no paradise. Still, Mahama is trying to do something with the office besides dine and dance, laugh and leave. President Mahama is not an electrifying speaker nor a particularly charismatic presence, but what oozes from his pores when he takes the stage is in much shorter supply today. There is no shortage of brainpower in the world, especially in Ghana. Courage, however, for those crowned with power, appears frighteningly scarce. There is a question echoing in our painful global silences: what is your intelligence (your wealth, resources, accolades, opportunities) for? Who does it serve? President Mahama, standing on the UN stage, says something about Ghana and Ghanaians, something about Africa and Africans, something about Palestine and Palestinians, Cuba and Cubans, and so forth; he speaks of a teeming world that will live, and not as collateral damage for an imploding/ exploding behemoth throwing out fire and flame as it twists itself into dust.