Ghana’s President, John Evans Atta-Mills, has been adjudged the worst performing West African Leader in 2011, only beating former Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade.

This damning verdict of President Mills’ leadership in his first term of office is contained in the 2011 Gallup poll, conducted from April 15 - April 29 2011, before the Woyome scandal broke out.

On the African continent, President Mills was adjudged the joint 10th worst performing African leader of 2011, only ahead of the likes of Rupiah Banda of Zambia, who exited office after only one term, and President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Whereas Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, Yayi Boni of Benin and former Malian President, Amadou Toumanu Toure, received approval ratings of 89%, 87% and 86% respectively from their constituents, President John Evans Atta-Mills received a meagre rating of 57% among Ghanaians.

The poll, which sought to find out approval ratings of 34 African leaders among their citizens, had President Mills joining President Jacob Zuma of South Africa in occupying the tenth position.

Even President Paul Biya of Cameron who has stayed in office for a total of 29 years obtained a rating of 73% rating with only 26% of Camerounians showing disapproval. Similarly, the President of Ghana’s northern neighbour, Blaise Compaore, who has also enjoyed a 28 year rule obtained a 71% approval rating among Burkinabes.

Other notable leaders who ranked ahead of President Mills include Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria, who obtained an 81% approval rating; 81% for Ian Kharma of Botswana; and an 80% approval rating for Alpha Conde of Guinea.

President Mills famously declared 2011 as his“Action Year”, a year where Ghanaians were going to witness massive infrastructure roll out including the Eastern Corridor roads, Kotokuraba market, Cape Coast Stadium, Volta and Brong Ahafo Universities and the STX housing projects.

However, 2011 rather witnessed the inability of President Mills to fulfil a single of the promises outlined above coupled with the payment of controversial judgement debts to financiers of President Mills and the NDC, chief among them being the GH¢51 million doled out to Alfred Agbesi Woyome for no work done.

Residents in most of the 34 sub-Saharan African countries Gallup surveyed in 2011 gave high marks to their chief political executives. Angola's president received the lowest rating, garnering approval from one in six residents.

According to the Gallup poll, the state of a country’s economy has influence “on Africans' assessments of their country's leader, at least to some extent.” Other factors that came into play in deciding approval ratings of African leaders include confidence in institutions, which was strongly associated with approval of the chief executive's performance; confidence in the honesty of elections; confidence in the judicial system; education and household income.

Results of the survey are based on face-to-face interviews with 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, conducted in 2011 in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.