- “We shall not let our guard down and allow the clammy embrace of the people by anti-democrats, who ... want short cuts to power without the express support of the people”
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said that democracy has been beneficial for Ghana, and served notice that the peace that the country is enjoying will be protected.
“Democracy has been beneficial for the continent and for our country. We know, however, that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and vigilant we shall be here in Ghana.
“We shall not let our guard down and allow the clammy embrace of the people by anti-democrats, who are disdainful and incapable of effective popular mobilisation through accepted channels, but who want short cuts to power without the express support of the people.”
These were Akufo-Addo’s words as he delivered a speech at the 2021 Ghana Bar Conference, held in Bolgatanga, the capital of the Upper East Region, on Monday 13 September 2021.
Addressing the gathering, President Akufo-Addo said data and history have proved, beyond all reasonable doubt, that all aspects of national life have witnessed significantly greater improvements under democratic dispensations than in periods of military rule.
Goodbye to the men in fatigues
According to the president, “The 1970s and 1980s, the periods of unbridled authoritarian rule on the continent, were the eras of economic decline, worsening poverty, collapsing infrastructure and insecurity on our continent.
“GDP per capita in 1970, for example, according to the World Bank, stood at $220.”
He added that the “third wave of democratisation” in Africa, starting in the 1990s, saw GDP per capita rise substantially, to $605 in 1995, declining to $547 in the year 2000 and increasing in 2017 to $1,550.
In Ghana, President Akufo-Addo said, GDP per capita was $398 in 1990, declined to $258 in 2000, and is now $2,223.
Another key index of human development, life expectancy at birth, was estimated by the World Bank at 45 years in 1970 in sub-Saharan Africa, he said.
“By 1990 this had increased to 50 years, and in 2019 life expectancy at birth on the continent was 61 years. In Ghana, it was 49 years in 1970, and 64 years in 2019. According to data from the World Bank, primary school enrolment in sub-Saharan Africa in 1970 stood at 54%, and had increased to 98.9% in 2019. It was 64% [gross] for us in Ghana in 1970, and by 2019, stood at 105% in 2019,” he said.
According to the president, the implementation of the Free Senior High School policy has brought 1.2 million Ghanaian children into the education system, the highest ever number of students in secondary school in Ghana’s history, 400,000 of whom would otherwise have been excluded.
In addition, he said, the National Health Insurance Scheme is operating more adequately and enjoys the confidence of increasing numbers of Ghanaians, with the number of active members up from 10.6 million in 2016 to 12.3 million at the end of 2019. “The goal in sight,” the president stressed, “is to attain universal health coverage for all.”
Beyond the power of the gun
Next year marks the 30th anniversary of the 1992 referendum on the changeover from military rule to the Fourth Republic. President Akufo-Addo argued that, by this process, the Ghanaian people showed their commitment to democratic governance under a constitution which guarantees full enjoyment of fundamental human rights and civic liberties.
“The decision has ushered our nation into the longest uninterrupted period of stable, constitutional democratic governance in her history which she has experienced, under the Fourth Republic, [with] three peaceful transfers of power through the ballot box on three separate occasions. The anti-democrats, who are always looking for occasions to sneer at democratic governance, should also bear the … data in mind,” he said.
Bar conferences, the president explained, became concerned with constitutional rule, freedom of the press, independence of the judiciary and other matters that were of paramount interest to the citizens, who wanted to live under a governance structure that was insulated from authoritarian rule, whether of the one-party Union Government or the military variety.
“The Bar joined, wholeheartedly, in the search of the people for democratic governance, where power emanates from the open decision of the ballot box, not from the coercive force of the gun, secretly undertaken behind the backs of the people,” Akufo-Addo said.
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