Credit Where It Is Due: What Ghana Teaches Us About Leadership

On 26 September, Tim Kipchumba took to X to give credit to Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Ghana’s former Vice President, for the part he played in his country’s digital transformation. He was responding to the journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo, who had shared Ghana’s latest growth figures.

Credit where it is due: Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia deserves recognition for the role he played in pushing Ghana’s digital transformation—championing infrastructure such as the Ghana Card, mobile-money interoperability, digital addressing and digitised government services. Ghana’s economy grew 6% in Q2 2026, according to the Ghana Statistical Service, and the continuing strength of its digital economy is a reminder that infrastructure built years earlier can keep creating value long after the politics of the moment has moved on. (Ghana Statistical Service)

There is a lesson here about the power of individual leaders to move institutions when they understand a problem deeply and persist with it. Bawumia came into politics as an economist and central banker—an Oxford-trained development economist with a PhD in Economics from Simon Fraser University who rose to Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana. (World Bank Live) Whatever one’s politics, Africa needs more leaders who bring expertise into public service, pick consequential problems, and spend years building the systems to solve them. Leadership can matter.

Tim Kipchumba (@TimKipchumba), 26 September 2026. Read the post on X

What Ghana built

Ghana’s economy grew 6% in the second quarter of 2026, according to the Ghana Statistical Service. Citing media reports, Onyango-Obbo noted that the tech sector grew 30.9% in the quarter and drove more than 40% of the country’s total expansion.

That growth did not come from a sudden burst of venture capital. It rests on infrastructure laid years earlier: the Ghana Card, a biometric ID linking mobile numbers, tax records and bank accounts; mobile money that works across networks; a digital address for every location; and government services moved online. Each one removes friction. Together they make it cheap for a business to find, verify and serve a customer.

This is what infrastructure does. As Tim put it, it keeps creating value “long after the politics of the moment has moved on.”

Expertise first, then persistence

Bawumia came to politics as an economist. He trained in development economics at Oxford, earned a PhD at Simon Fraser University, and rose to Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana. He understood the problem before he set out to solve it, and he stayed with it for years.

“Whatever one’s politics,” Tim wrote, “Africa needs more leaders who bring expertise into public service, pick consequential problems, and spend years building the systems to solve them.”

Why it matters in Elgeyo Marakwet

It is the standard Tim holds himself to. He comes to this race as a builder, not a career politician. Questworks, the engineering firm he co-founded at 27, has delivered more than 1,000 acres of solar and employs over 200 young people. Mentorthon has put CEOs in front of about 1,000 students from 140 schools in Marakwet.

The lesson from Ghana is not about one country or one party. It is that systems outlast slogans, and that a leader who knows a problem deeply can move institutions that look immovable. Elgeyo Marakwet deserves that kind of leadership.

In Tim’s words: leadership can matter.