PRESIDENT MAHAMA INSULTS RURAL COCOA FARMERS AS GOVERNMENT BREACHES AGREEMENT
PRESIDENT MAHAMA TRANSFORMS NATIONAL DEMOCRACY INTO A PROPERTY-OWNING DEMOCRACY – THE RURAL COCOA FARMER CAN GO TO HELL.
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
The President Mahama Government has deceived citizens and dishonoured agreements it made with people in the cocoa industry, especially the large group of rural cocoa farmers who make up the heart of this agricultural sector. The Government’s agreed producer price for the 2025–2026 cocoa season had promised to raise the producer price of cocoa to GHS3,625 per bag or GHS58,000 per tonne. This represented an increase of about GHS400 per bag, or 12.27% more than the price announced in August 2025. The new price should have gone into effect on Friday, October 3, 2025. Instead, cocoa farmers have had to object to the breach of contractual arrangements and the Government’s unilateral decision to reduce the producer price. Their protests are about an unfair price that is damaging to their livelihoods – not politically motivated propaganda. And President Mahama’s response shows that the government is not really committed to the national democratic ideals of development.
The President Mahama government had no intention of honouring the agreement at the time it was made, as demonstrated by its failure or refusal to pay the poor rural cocoa farmers whose entire livelihood depends on farming and selling cocoa to sustain millions of their families, leading to agitations from November 2025 calling on the COCOBOD and the government to pay for their produce it had already bought and to buy those still at the farmgate.
It had to take advocacy by Joy News, editorial comments by the Ghanaian Chronicle newspaper and other media to galvanize the people for President Mahama to scramble to call “an EMERGENCY CABINET SESSION for tomorrow, Wednesday, 11th February 2026 to address all issues affecting the Cocoa sector.” The results of the emergency cabinet meeting instead of ameliorating the financial plight of the poor rural cocoa farmer led to a reduction of the agreed and expected receipt from the produce of their labour in the name of addressing the ongoing liquidity crisis in the cocoa sector.
On Wednesday, 12 February 2026 President Mahama’s most trusted confidant who hold the portfolios of Minister of Finance and Acting Minister for Defence, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, with tongue in cheek addressed the nation on the outcome of the emergency Cabinet meeting intended to introduce sweeping reforms aimed at stabilising the cocoa industry in Ghana, ensuring fair prices for farmers and promoting long-term sustainability.
On the same day President Mahama, who had supervised the cocoa sector for over one full year since his assumption of office, jetted off to the 39 Assembly of Heads of States and Governments of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to return on 16 February 2026. In the interim, President Mahama had slated the occasion of the Ghana Tree Crops Investment Summit and Exhibition on 17 February 2026 for the deployment of the government’s usual propaganda machine to allow the President to pretend to empathize with the cocoa farmers who have been the main stay of the Ghanaian economy over the decades.
President Mahama’s performance in his address at what was termed “the maiden Ghana Tree Crops Investment Summit and Exhibition” exposed the President as an opportunist who had hidden under the cover of the national democratic ideology of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) which he joined only in 1996 to pursue a property owning agenda culminating in the acquisition of 50 acres of land on which he had cultivated cocoa and a further 100 acres of land to cultivate oil palm as President of Ghana.
Joy News quoted the President to have stated, inter alia, that:
“Nana Kwebu Ewusi gave me 50 acres of land, and I planted cocoa on the 50 acres, so I am a cocoa farmer. So when the price is reduced by the government, it affects me too. I want to be able to empathise with farmers so that when we take any policy decision, we know that it has an effect on farmers and we feel it ourselves.”
My News Ghana quoted President Mahama to have said that:
“I planted cocoa on the 50 acres, so I’m a cocoa farmer. And so when the price was reduced by government, it affects me too.... I want to be able to empathise with farmers, so that when we take any policy decision, we know that it has an effect on farmers, and we feel it ourselves....If the price, if there’s no fertiliser, if the price of fertiliser is expensive, I feel it myself, because I also buy fertiliser.”
My News Ghana concluded its reportage by stating that: “President Mahama also shared that he recently acquired another 100 acres of land, which he has dedicated to oil palm cultivation.”
The foregoing statements by President Mahama flaunting his ill gotten gains and profits under the colour of his authority as President of Ghana rather conveys to me, my sense of morality, legality, and justice the reason why President Mahama does not really care about the decision of his government to reduce the poor cocoa farmer’s farmgate price from GHc3,625 to GHc2, 587 per bag in the name of aligning with a volatile international market.
The comparison which President Mahama as a cocoa farmer made with the mass of the Ghanaian cocoa rural farmers who have sustained the cocoa industry over the decades does not demonstrate empathy, humility, and understanding. It shows what power can make of a politician who just over a year ago was soliciting the electorate for votes to allegedly enable him implement national democratic policies that will ameliorate the harsh conditions of the ordinary Ghanaian brough about by what was perceived as mismanagement by Nana Akufo-Addo’s property-owning democratic government.
President Mahama became Vice-President and later President of Ghana between 7 January 2009 and 7 January 2017. Ghanaians restored President Mahama to the Presidency on 7 January 2025 as a sign of their revulsion against former President Nana Akufo-Addo’s eight-year grand deception which was acquiesced in by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) only to be informed on 17 February 2026 that President Mahama was on property acquisition spree under the colour of his office as our President contrary to the conditions of service provided for under Article 68 of the Constitution that prohibits him from holding “any other office of profit or emoluments whether private or public and whether directly or indirectly;” including on leaving office as President.
The President could not also have acquired fifty (50) acres of land to farm for profit and intend to acquire a further hundred acres of land for palm oil for profit without contravening the conflict-of-interest provision in Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution and other penal provisions of the law on abuse of power and office for private profit.
It is, therefore, in the public interest for President Mahama to disclose to the electorate now when he acquired the fifty acres of land on which he planted fifty acres of cocoa to enable him to empathize with the rural cocoa farmer suffering loss of income. It is also in the public interest for President Mahama to disclose to the electorate the consideration for which Nana Kwebu Ewusi gave him the fifty acres of land. Could the payment for the land be the several appointments President Mahama doled out to the said Nana Kwebu Ewusi over the years including the current Chair of a public Commission? President Mahama’s declaration of owning fifty acres of land given to him by Nana Kwebu Ewusi raises the foregoing constitutional and legal issues for purposes of exemplary conduct as President of Ghana under the 1992 Constitution.
The mass of Ghanaian rural cocoa farmers rely only on their cocoa farms to make a living and look after all the needs of their families, including health, education, and other requirements of life. John Mahama gave the genuine appearance of empathizing with and understanding the plight of the rural cocoa farmer and used that to effect to campaign for their votes to improve their lot upon being voted as President of Ghana.
On 15 November 2024, for instance, candidate John Mahama expressed concern to the cocoa farmers of the Western North Region about the collapse of the cocoa plantations and his determination to improve the livelihood of the farmers to the extent of providing irrigation to increase their earnings. See Mahama promises year-round irrigation to revive cocoa farming - MyJoyOnline . In a press release from the Presidency, “Mahama reaffirms commitment: cocoa farmers to receive 70% of world market price” dated 17 July 2025 the nation was told that:
‘Addressing a grand durbar of chiefs and residents in Juaboso on Tuesday, the President declared: “Let me be clear: we will honour our promise to pay our hardworking farmers 70 per cent of the world market price of cocoa. The sweat of our cocoa farmers deserves dignity and a fair reward.”’ (Emphasis supplied).
The full press release can be read at: Mahama reaffirms commitment: cocoa farmers to receive 70% of world market price. - The Presidency, Republic of Ghana
On 4 August 2025, Government announced a producer price of cocoa for the 2025/2026 season at GHS3,228.75 per bag and GHS51,660 (US$5,040) per tonne, representing 70% of the average Gross FoB price of US$7,200 per tonne. Then on 2 October 2025 the Minister of Finance issued a press release stating, inter alia, that:
“Following extensive consultations with stakeholders, Government has decided to increase the producer price of cocoa to GHS3,625 per bag or GHS58,000 per tonne. 4. This represents an increase of about GHS400 per bag, equivalent to a 12.27% rise over the price announced in August.”
President Mahama and his government have been in office since 7 January 2025 and are deemed to have known and projected the state of the economy and in particular the cocoa sector when it made the promises to the rural cocoa farmers on whom it depended for votes to come into office and it cannot be heard on 12 February 2026 to seek to change the goal posts by giving the mass of rural cocoa farmers reduced prices without any consultation with them or other stakeholders. Insultingly, as though he was not speaking to the very electorate who made him President, President Mahama had the effrontery to flaunt before Ghanaians the unlawful acquisition of acres of land for cocoa farming in abuse of office as an excuse for the indigent cocoa farmer to accept the government’s breaches of trust on the agreed producer price for the 2025/2026 season.
The cocoa farmers were justified in protesting against the impunity and abuse of power exhibited by the government in suddenly reducing their expectation of renumeration on their cocoa for the 2025/2026 season as agreed with the government. The fact that the cocoa farmers protested against the government’s recent reduction of the cocoa producer price from GHS3,625 to GHS2,587 per 64‑kilogram bag started on Thursday 19 February 2026 from the strong hold of the NDC in the Western North Region where President Mahama made promises on 15 November 2024 and recently on 17 July 2025 demonstrates that contrary to the assertions by sycophants of the government that the protests are politically motivated partake of the usual propaganda to deflect accountability. The protesters were right to call the breach of the contractual arrangements between them and the government in the unilateral reduction in the producer price as being unfair and damaging to their livelihoods.
Apart from the Suaman Constituency, which was won by the NPP, the remaining eight parliamentary seats in the Western North Region were taken by the NDC in the last elections. Consequently, for the farmers from the districts of Sefwi Wiawso, Juaboso and Bia West to march through principal streets, waving placards reading “Restore Our Price Now” and “Cocoa Sustains Ghana, Don’t Neglect Farmers” is indicative of how the arrogance of power has beclouded the policy calculations and judgment of the John Mahama government. The cocoa farmers’ argument that “rising costs for labour, fertiliser and transport mean the new price barely covers production expenses” is valid and one does not expect such farmers to accept President Mahama’s declaration of being also a cocoa farmer.
Cocoa is the lifeblood of the mass of rural farmers and every patriotic citizen ought to support the protest by the mass of rural cocoa farmers. It was therefore, right for cocoa farmers to have picketed the headquarters of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in Accra on 20 February 2026 over the falling producer prices and the delayed payments that have pushed farming households into economic distress.
President Mahama whose emoluments and retirement benefits are at the taxpayers’ expense under Article 68 of the Constitution cannot feel the pain of the ordinary cocoa farmer when the farmer says that: “We depend entirely on cocoa. When payments delay or prices drop, our families suffer.” Or when the picketers carrying inscriptions stating that: ‘”We worked, you lied,” “Government celebrates but our families mourn,” and “We can’t pay our kids’ school fees.”’
The fact that the ordinary cocoa farmer protesting the government’s breach of trust and contract has nothing to do with partisan politics is demonstrated by the contents of the press release issued by the Catholic Bishops Conference on 20 February 2026 in which the conference stated, inter alia that: “For months, many farmers have endured delays in payment, resulting in unpaid labour, disrupted schooling, mounting debt, and growing vulnerability to illegal mining.”
The Conference noted that the reduction in the producer price has worsened the situation of the cocoa farmer and eroded confidence in the sector and pointed the path to a resolution as follows: “Equity and justice demand that accumulated surpluses from years of windfall gains be used to cushion farmers in difficult years. To penalise them for circumstances beyond their control would be insensitive and morally indefensible.”
Unfortunately, on the same day the government cast the protests as instigated by its opponents in the NPP rather than a genuine grass roots protest as though the Catholic Bishops Conference which has eyes and ears all over the country was also politically motivated in calling the government’s attention to the sorry plight of the rural cocoa farmers. Joy News, however, put the lie to the government’s propaganda when it reported that:
“Despite Mr Ayariga's confidence, the tension in the Western North remains high. While the Majority Leader claims the "farmer appreciates the solution", the boots on the ground in Sefwi Wiawso suggest a deep disconnect between parliamentary rhetoric and the reality of the rural economy.”
President Mahama took advantage of the reality of factual mess caused to the Ghanaian economy by the excesses of the Nana Akufo-Addo’s property owning democracy to catapult himself to the Presidency. It will, therefore, be naive to expect the NPP to not also take advantage of the current reality in the cocoa sector after more than one year of John Mahama’s administration. Politics aside, every objective citizen knows that after one year in government without any attempt to introduce reforms in the cocoa sector, the reforms it now claims to embark upon in the attempt to offload every consequence of the reduction in producer price for the 2025/2026 season entirely on its predecessor government could pass for the hallmark of damage control to save face.
On 16 December 2024 President-elect, John Mahama gave an interview to Reuters news in which he enumerated his plans to reform the cocoa sector and to restructure the regulator of cocoa. President-elect John Mahama’s interview can be read at: Ghana's president-elect plans to reform cocoa sector, restructure regulator | Reuters. After assuming office on 7 January 2025 President Mahama became comfortable with the cocoa sector and made promises to the rural cocoa farmer by increasing the producer price twice in August and October 2025 for the 2025/2026 cocoa season only to renege on his undertakings on 11 February 2026 when the farmers insisted on the government delivering upon its promises and undertakings.
Writing on the current problems in the cocoa sector in defence of the government, one author stated that: “These pressures span governments. They span parties. They span years.” Consequently, I contend that the rural farmer should not be the sacrificial lamb for the inefficiencies of the cocoa sector that spans governments, political parties, and years. That is why the government’s attempt to deflect its inability to manage the cocoa sector after a full year in office should not be attributed to a predecessor government alone. One cannot claim credit for only what is good and attribute every other blame for whatever goes wrong to one’s predecessor.
The ethos of national or social democracy on which the NDC was founded in 1992 won the government the 7 December 2024 elections and the John Mahama government is bound by those core principles to pay the mass of rural farmers the producer prices they were promised on 2 October 2025. The NDC is not a party of mercenaries and greedy politicians lying to the masses for votes!
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
22 February 2026.