Chief Executive Officer of the Ecobank Group, Mr Ade Ayeyemi has praised the leadership style of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo in the country’s management of the COVID-19 health crisis.

Mr Ayeyemi noted that “in terms of building capacity to be able to deal with the health crisis, I like the leadership exhibited by Ghana in terms of the President coming out to communicate with his people, letting them understand why certain restrictions had to be taken.”

The Ecobank Group CEO was responding to questions on the African response to the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic at a global virtual event dubbed ‘Bloomberg Invest Global,’ on the theme ‘Weathering Market Turbulence in the Age of COVID-19’.

Sharing his insights on the high growth investments opportunities that could help African economies and markets overcome the effects of COVID-19, the Ecobank Group CEO said most African countries had taken lessons from history that “when you have a health crisis you deal with it first, yes it has consequences on livelihood and the economy, but it’s important to deal with the health crisis.”

Mr Ayeyemi stressed the need for African countries to prioritise the COVID-19 crisis, after which the livelihoods of people and the larger economy ought to be tackled.

The responses of all African countries can be said to have been pretty good because “we did not have the consequence that was forecasted in March given the way the health crisis ravaged the industrial nations.”

According to him, African leaders and also the population understood that the need to avert the health crisis was significant.

Mr Ayeyemi observed that governments had made interventions, trying to support people, boost household incomes that were depleted as a result of they not working, trying to put some palliative measures in place.