Barely three days after he was declared winner of Saturday's presidential election in Ghana, President John Mahama on Wednesday paid a brief visit to President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Mahama, the Ghanaian electoral body said, won 50.7 per cent of the total votes cast while opposition leader, Nana Akufo-Addo, came second with 47.7 per cent votes.
Members of the opposition have been protesting against the result of the election which they claimed was flawed.
But Mahama, who became the country's president in July after the death of former President John Atta-Mills, held a closed-door session with Jonathan on Wednesday in his first trip outside Ghana after the election.
At the end of the meeting that lasted less than 30 minutes, the Ghanaian leader told State House correspondents that he was on his way to Equatorial Guinea for the conference of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. He explained that he decided to stop over in Abuja to pay his respect to Jonathan considering the relations between the two countries.
Ghana has been the chair of the group since 2008 but it will be handing over to Equatorial Guinea during the conference.
He said, "After election, it is significant that this (Nigeria) is the first country I should visit just to cement the relations between our two great countries.
"I am here to pay my respect to President Jonathan and my condolences on the loss of his younger brother. I should have attended the funeral but we were at the height of our election so, it wasn't possible.
"So, I came with the traditional drinks as it is customary with Ghana and our contribution to the funeral which I have presented to President Jonathan to be sent to the family back home."
Mahama said he also used the opportunity to discuss with Jonathan the issue of West Africa Gas Pipeline which got broken recently.
He said he appealed to Jonathan to use his influence to get the pipeline back into operation so that Ghana could continue to receive Nigerian gas to power its electricity plants.
Jonathan led Vice- President Namadi Sambo, some ministers and top presidential aides to receive the Ghanaian leader on the sideline of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting.
