![Mahama in the Clouds: All his speeches boiled down to just five words [infographic]](https://graphiconline.com/images/joomlart/article/ba879402e797749dc0e9af96c545e171.jpg)
Mahama in the Clouds: All his speeches boiled down to just five words [infographic]
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. As it turns out, that exchange rate only increases when those words come from politicians.
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On Tuesday, President Mahama handed over the keys to the chairmanship of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). If you caught his final address to the leaders of ECOWAS on TV or radio, you undoubtedly noticed the hiccup that occurred when the pages of his speech went missing, forcing him to improvise.
Still, Mr. Mahama is a born orator, so he had little trouble hitting the high notes from memory. Those included proposals for enhanced legislative powers for the ECOWAS parliament, and promoting job creation for the youth of West Africa. You can read the Daily Graphic's complete coverage of his remarks, but if you're in a hurry, here's a word cloud for faster digestion:
Opening Speech at the 47th Session of the ECOWAS Heads of Member State & Government - (May 19, 2015)
Rememember, the larger the words appear in the cloud, the more often Mr. Mahama emphasized that idea. Before the pages of his speech went dumsor, Mr. Mahama discussed the advancing democratic ecosystem within the ECOWAS, including proposals for free travel and economic zones. Dovetailing this concept, he also praised Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan for peacefully conceding defeat in recent elections. He also urged for continued vigilence in the effort to stamp out the ebola epidemic, which despite its successful eradication in Liberia, remains widespread in Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Below are word clouds depicting other notable addresses made by Mr. Mahama in recent memory.
58th Independence Day Presidential Address, Black Star Square -(March 06, 2015)
Remarks by President John Mahama after his visit to Three Power Plants in Tema - (February 2, 2015)
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In case you're wondering what the word "cow" is doing in this word cloud, here is the context: "I want to congratulate the workers who have been working on this plant.... The Minister said he has promised you a cow when you complete, I have added one cow to it. So you will have two cows."
President Mahama Addresses Ghanaian Concerns Over Security Situation in Nigeria - (May 8, 2015)
These are interesting to look at, but let's get serious. Feeding all of Mr. Mahama's official public addresses, speeches and memoranda into one cloud—all are available for posterity on the President's website—may illustrate broader themes in his messaging. From this mammoth pool of 200,000 official words, we extract signal from noise by first removing all the obvious pleasantries and boilerplate language, such as phrases like "Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen." We can also safely assume that he uses geographic words like "Ghana," and "country" a great deal, and largely with neutral tone; these can also be excised. Then, we distill his speeches down to the top 50 most-repeated concepts. What remains are the building blocks of a deeply populist message:
Of course, speeches don't always reflect reality, and plumbing the deep chasms between these fine words and Ghana's political situation are beyond the scope of this analysis. But, this word cloud does illustrate an axiom of political communication: Speeches say more about the desires of audience than those of the speaker. Ghanaians have been the vanguards of democracy in Africa since Kwame Nkrumah first led Ghana out out of its colonial shackles. Contemporary political divisions notwithstanding, I believe that vision remains deeply important to the people of Ghana—nothing instills an idea like having to fight for it. Regardless of what Mr. Nkrumah might have to say about how Mr. Mahama is keeping his vision for African soverignty, I'm sure the two leaders could at least agree on the top-five words used in the sitting President's speeches: