The issues that confronted us were serious enough to warrant presidential attention. We had our story all lined up. Or so we thought. Calmly, the President listened to us. In three minutes, we were done. He then asked us a simple question. Did we already anticipate and deploy a public service process? We had not. Indeed, if we had, the solution to our problem could have been more seamless. The President’s question betrayed our poor planning. I felt embarrassed.

However, in typical Mahama fashion, Mr President warmly glided through the glitch, soothing the moment with smiles and proffering a solution to a challenge that might otherwise not have needed his intervention. Actions promptly followed within 24 hours! President John Mahama’s long experience as a politician, deep understanding of public sector processes, his sharp wit and uncommon grasp of issues make him a ‘tough’ customer to deal with.

Overall, it has been a great year; a baptism of fire of sorts in public-sector rigmarole, lots of support from family, colleagues, comrades, and, not least, the Health Minister, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh. A truly great honour done to me by the President to serve in an impactful role. What reflections and experiences rise to the top, especially as it relates directly to President Mahama?   

1. The President’s Accra Reset Agenda Has Gone Viral!

The President has caught the attention and fired the imagination of the global health community. With the United States' withdrawal from global health organisations and the collapse of USAID and its associated development funding, Africa was in dire need of a new kind of leadership. Mahama stepped into it. Forcefully. Elegantly. Inspiringly. His Accra Reset Agenda has elucidated a steady path to achieving Africa’s Health Sovereignty. For obvious reasons, health has now become the rallying cry for greater local financial ownership, stronger equal partnerships focused on national priorities, and a reset of the global health governance architecture.

2. President Mahama Backs Global Health Rhetoric with Concrete Local Actions:  

On 5^th August, 2025, Mahama articulated his bold vision on Africa’s health sovereignty in Accra. A day later, he followed his words with deeds by allocating $50M in additional seed funding to the National Vaccine Institute (NVI). The President tasked NVI with advancing local vaccine manufacturing, boosting compliance with international regulatory standards, and building research and biomanufacturing skills.

John Mahama’s bold promise to uncap  Ghana’s National Health Insurance Fund, which he honoured soon after he assumed the Presidency,  freed an additional $320 million in 2025, with similar or higher inflows expected in 2026 and beyond. Even as Ghana undergoes a stringent International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, President Mahama’s far-reaching policies are resetting the narrative on local resource mobilisation.

To quote Dr Victor Bampoe, CEO of the NHIA, “President Mahama’s visionary leadership has enabled the health sector to pursue end-to-end health coverage in its quest to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). With a decisive pivot to address the epidemiological transition (which now makes NCDs account for 42% of mortality among Ghanaians), healthcare provision starts with free primary healthcare, moves to the national health insurance scheme for communicable diseases and then to the Ghana Medical Trust Fund or Mahama Cares, which takes care of people with NCDs like cancer, stroke, etc. With the extra funding provided by the uncapping, we have enabled four main outcomes: reduction in financial barriers to care; addressing low awareness of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs); detecting NCDs early; and closing systemic gaps, including gaps in equipment and infrastructure.” 

This decisive move by President Mahama to create more fiscal space for health has accounted for the rapid payment of $25M in vaccine copayment in 2025, $120M earmarked for the free Primary Healthcare initiative in 2026, including the $46M worth of equipment already purchased to kick off the fPHC programme.

3. Mahama’s Office Demonstrates Operational Efficiency: 

My meetings with the President are by far my favourite. They are short, to the point and always impactful. I have never attended a meeting with President Mahama that lasted more than 30 minutes. This means that advanced preparation is always key, with key issues crystallised and options for decision-making outlined. The ambassador in attendance promptly introduces attendees and the agenda, a few thoughtful remarks from selected speakers, and the President caps it off with clear decisions and the way forward. We take pictures. Post-meeting actions are always handled with prompt efficiency, often with Dr Callistus Mahama, the President’s Executive Secretary, acting within 24 hours of the meeting's end. No frustrating repeated requests for appointments, non-responsive personal assistants, ill-defined agendas, missing correspondence, and the like! None of that!

4. Mahama – An Authentic Champion for Global Initiatives.

President Mahama is a communicator at heart, an excellent public speaker. With his impactful reset agenda, the world is increasingly taking note and reaching out to him for leadership. In 2025, GAVI CEO Dr Sonia Nishtar reached out to Mahama to support the GAVI replenishment in Brussels in June 2025, raising $ 9 billion to subsidise global immunisation programmes. Why Mahama? After all, he was not the AU Chair. Not the ECOWAS Chair. Not on the GAVI Board. In the build-up to Brussels, Bill Gates also reached out. And so did the Global Fund. At the fundraiser, the speech by Ghana’s John Mahama became the toast of the community. There he showed an uncanny ability to connect his personal story to the why of the moment, ending with an unforgettable rallying cry for action. It worked! And GAVI's decision to rope in Mahama proved both strategic and wise. Today, President Mahama is the champion of numerous African Union initiatives, including ACHIEVE, Africa’s latest attempt to redefine the vaccine R&D agenda!

5. Never Miss the Mahama-moments.

This is difficult to fully explain. Typically, it occurs when the President is required to explain an issue. He would sometimes launch into this detailed, almost technical explanation, betraying such a deep grasp of the issues that belies his high-level strategic role as the President. How does he know so much about “galamsey” and the “Blue Economy” anyway?

If the health sector seizes the moment, this grand opportunity that the President has offered us, we stand the chance of being the most articulate definition of the Mahama legacy tenure.

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The writer, Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey, is the CEO of the National Vaccine Institute and can be reached via email at sodzitettey@gmail.com