Ghana

The president of Ghana, John Atta Mills started his personal Twitter account in early January 2012. The account is run by his spokesperson and has been re-activated in June 2012 after a six month hiatus. “Hello Everyone! We've been off for a while now, but now we are back, How are you all doing? Got any question for Mr. President please?“ he asks. So far the interaction with the president has been timid despite the encouragement to follow the account: “For If they do, they can ask Mr Prez questions dear 2 their hearts.” The president even sent a good morning tweet to @BarackObama “Good Morning Mr President”, which remained unanswered.

The presidential administration maintains a second institutional account named after Osu Castle, the seat of the government near Accra. @osucastle was set up in June 2009 and used to tweet news about the Ghanaian president but has been dormant since March 2012. This account was active during the summer of 2009 but has only tweeted 13 times within the last three years. The account was used to wish followers happy holidays, congratulating sports teams and providing links to articles the President is mentioned in. The account has occasionally tweeted about policy issues and facts about the Ghanaian government. There were also a slew of tweets during President Obama’s visit to Ghana in July 2009.