President John Dramani Mahama has expressed his desire for God to use him as an instrument to change the fortunes of the country.
“My prayer is, God use me as your instrument. It is you who brought me to this place. It is you who will let me serve your purpose. And the purpose is to serve my fellow Ghanaians and make sure that we’re able to turn the fortunes of this country around and make everybody’s life better,” he stated.
President Mahama made this heartfelt remark on Sunday, February 2, 2025, when he joined the congregation for the First Service at the Cedar Mountain Chapel of Assemblies of God in East Legon.
The President was unable to join the congregation on Sunday, January 26, 2025, for the Thanksgiving service held in honor of the late Madam Deborah Wengam, following her burial, as he was traveling outside the country.
President Mahama recalled that when he was young, several times he wanted to do something else and not to be a doctor or a lawyer, stressing that while other people may want to be Presidents, lawyers, and doctors, he wanted to do ordinary things.
“I mean, if you ask me what do you want to be in the future? I didn’t say I want to be a doctor or a lawyer. At one time I wanted to be a fireman. Because I like their uniform and the red fire trucks they used to drive. Then another time I wanted to be a State Transport Company driver. Because you sit in the car from Tamale to Accra, the way he’s driving it looks nice,” he indicated.
He, however, observed that in his career trajectory, “God has kept pushing me in the direction that he wants me to go. At every point, I have been reluctant to follow that trajectory. For instance, politics, I was reluctant to go into politics.”
President Mahama explained that he was unwilling to go into politics because of what his late father went through in politics – he was arrested and locked up for two years.
He explained that his father was so traumatized that he never wanted to have anything to do with politics and so he went into business and became a very successful commercial rice farmer in the north.
“And so because of the narrations that he had given about the trauma he suffered in prison and the setbacks he suffered as a result of his politics, my mind was, I will not be a politician. But God said, who are you to decide? I will do with you what I want. And the rest is history” the President further recounted.
President Mahama explained that even after being a deputy minister for communications and minister for communications between 1997 and January 7, 2001, he told himself that “look, my dad wanted somebody to follow in his footsteps. I’ve been deputy minister, I’ve been minister. My father was a minister in the Nkrumah regime. So I’ve done his political path. Now let me go and do the one I also want.”
Source: Bernard K Dadzie; Greater Accra Region
