- "Let us guard jealously the peace and stability we are enjoying. There are some restless spirits amongst us who, seeking to exploit the current difficulties confronting the nation, claim to have lost confidence in our democratic system."
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has stated that his government will resist any coup attempt to destabilise the peace being enjoyed in Ghana at the moment.
Speaking in Cape Coast at the 65th Independence Day parade, he said that coups do not have a place in present day Ghana, adding that he was prepared as the president to use all legitimate means possible to resist any attempt to subvert the constitution.
“Let us guard jealously the peace and stability we are enjoying. There are some restless spirits amongst us who, seeking to exploit the current difficulties confronting the nation, claim to have lost confidence in our democratic system.
“Whatever be the case, they seem ready to jeopardise the hard won reputation of our country as beacon of democracy and stability in Africa and indeed, in the world, in order to gratify their personal ambition, ambitions which show little or no respect for the capacity of the Ghanaian people to change when necessary their government peacefully through the ballot box, something we have done on three separate occasions in the 29-year life of the Fourth Republic,” Akufo-Addo said.
“Either the absence of faith in the prospect of democratic alternative to the current government or their impatience to wield executive authority are the factors driving their appetite for the short cut of military intervention.
“The great majority of us who are committed to democratic values and institutions will continue to resist the claims of these adventurers and deploy all legitimate means in our democracy to maintain our free open system of governance which has respect for human rights, the rule of law and the principles of democratic accountability,” Akufo-Addo said.
Coupmongering
The dean of the University of Ghana Law School, Professor Raymond Atuguba, has been under fire recently when he said at a public lecture in Accra that Ghana’s current financial state is a threat to its democracy.
“A big part of why certain coups succeed and others fail is the economy. What is the state of Ghana’s economy today?
“At the level of the most irreducible idiomaticity, Ghana is broke. Your nation is radically broke. So broke, the Speaker of Parliament has publicly warned, gavel in hand, that we may not be able to pay the salaries of public sector workers in the next three months,” he said.
Eric Asante
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