Policy think tank IMANI Africa says Ghana’s online political conversation became increasingly confrontational in September 2026, with illegal mining, narcotics-related disputes, economic hardship and parliamentary conflict shaping public discussion.
The IMANI PULSE analysis, covering 1 to 30 September, monitored 17,806 public posts on X, Facebook and TikTok. Those posts produced 4,838 sentiment readings linked to seven political figures and 16 keywords. No coordinated activity was identified.
President John Dramani Mahama remained by far the most discussed politician, accounting for 2,745 readings, or 57% of the total. However, his mean sentiment score of -0.01 was effectively neutral, with 1,360 positive mentions compared with 1,125 negative ones.
His visibility increased sharply during the week beginning 21 September, when he recorded 933 mentions and his IMANI Pulse Index reached 0.54. Mahama’s coverage was also the most policy-focused, with a 73% Substance Index, compared with 46% for Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and 7% for Kennedy Agyapong.
The report said Dr Cassiel Ato Forson’s Substance Index stood at 65%, while his weekly substance score reached 0.72 during the second week of September, the highest recorded in the report.
Alexander Afenyo-Markin recorded the most negative sentiment among the seven figures monitored. The Minority Leader received 454 mentions, 66% of which were negative, producing a mean score of -0.27.
His coverage included parliamentary disputes, the GoldBod losses debate, education concerns and a late-month confrontation over cocaine seizures. His description of Mahama’s flagship policy as a “24-hour cocaine economy” became a major online talking point, while his challenge for a parliamentary inquiry added to the negative tone. His Substance Index was 45%.
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and Dr Cassiel Ato Forson were the only politicians to finish the month with positive mean scores. Bawumia recorded 630 mentions and a score of +0.07, while Ato Forson had 599 mentions and a score of +0.04.
Galamsey was the most prominent and most negatively viewed issue, generating 2,647 mentions and a mean score of -0.72. Its activity remained high throughout the month, rising from 505 mentions in the week beginning 31 August to 668 in the final week of September.
Narcotics-related issues dominated the closing weeks. EOCO recorded 1,939 mentions with a mean score of -0.34, while cocaine generated 1,344 mentions and a score of -0.48. Narcotics itself recorded 393 mentions at -0.34. EOCO mentions rose from 34 in the week of 14 September to 1,364 the following week.
Economic concerns remained substantial. Currency and cedi generated 1,361 mentions, followed by fuel and energy with 1,135. The strongest negative sentiment was recorded for cost of living (-0.25), debt and the IMF (-0.24), and fuel (-0.23). Cedi discussion was more mixed, with 454 positive and 610 negative mentions.
The Big Push infrastructure programme provided the clearest positive economic narrative, despite attracting only 121 mentions. It recorded a mean sentiment score of +0.28.
IMANI said the data showed that controversy remained a major driver of online attention, but policy continued to influence the debate. It said the key question was whether intense political discussion was producing meaningful engagement with governance and public outcomes.
The analysis used a targeted sample rather than a census of Ghanaian online activity. It included posts from X (14,171), Facebook (3,484) and TikTok (151), with Facebook data drawn from 19 public news and media pages. Sentiment was scored on a scale from -1 to +1 using a multilingual model adjusted with IMANI’s Ghanaian political lexicon.
