Amidu Raises Constitutional Alarm Over Mahama’s Cocoa Farm and Broken Price Promise

Former Special Prosecutor and former Attorney General Martin Amidu has issued a wide-ranging public rebuke of President John Dramani Mahama over the government’s decision to cut cocoa producer prices, simultaneously accusing the administration of breaking specific electoral promises to farmers and raising constitutional questions about the President’s personal ownership of agricultural land.

The trigger for Amidu’s intervention was a statement Mahama made at the maiden Ghana Tree Crops Investment Summit and Exhibition in Accra on February 17, 2026. Speaking days after his government slashed the cocoa farmgate price from 3,625 Ghana cedis to 2,587 Ghana cedis per 64-kilogram bag, the President invoked his personal farming experience to signal empathy with rural producers. “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,” he said.

Amidu argued that far from demonstrating empathy, the disclosure exposed a fundamental contradiction. A president whose full remuneration is funded by taxpayers, he contended, cannot credibly claim to share in the financial suffering of subsistence cocoa farmers who depend entirely on their farms to pay school fees, medical bills, and meet daily survival needs.

On the constitutional dimension, Amidu cited Article 68 and Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution, arguing that a sitting President is prohibited from holding offices of profit or placing themselves in positions where personal interest conflicts with public duty. “The issue is not empathy,” he wrote. “The issue is legality, conflict of interest, and exemplary conduct under the Constitution.”

The cocoa producer price was announced at 2,587 Ghana cedis per bag, equivalent to 41,392 Ghana cedis per tonne, effective February 12, 2026, a 28 percent reduction from the previous 3,625 Ghana cedis per bag.

Amidu constructed a detailed timeline of what he described as broken promises, noting that in Juaboso on July 17, 2025, the President publicly 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 government set a price reflecting that commitment in August 2025 and raised it further on October 2, 2025, before reversing course in February 2026. “You cannot seek electoral trust on firm undertakings and retreat when implementation becomes difficult,” Amidu wrote.

Amidu noted that the Western North Region, which delivered eight of its nine parliamentary seats to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the December 2024 elections, was the epicentre of the protests, significantly weakening the government’s argument that demonstrations were driven by New Patriotic Party (NPP) opposition agitation. Farmers from Sefwi Wiawso, Juaboso, and Bia West marched through community streets on February 19, 2026, carrying placards reading “Restore Our Price Now” and picketed the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) headquarters in Accra the following day.

Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga defended the price cut as economically necessary, arguing that COCOBOD was burdened with significant liabilities inherited from the previous administration and that global cocoa prices had dropped sharply, making the earlier price unsustainable. He dismissed the protests as politically orchestrated, a position Amidu directly challenged in his open letter.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of Ghana added its voice to the controversy on February 20, 2026, describing it as morally indefensible for the government not to draw on accumulated surpluses from past cocoa windfall years to cushion farmers during the current price decline, and calling on authorities to restore equity and justice in their treatment of rural producers.