John Dramani Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama has laughed off suggestions that he intends to command absolute power by making the Legislature and Judiciary subservient to the Executive, following the removal of Justice Gertrude Torkornoo as Chief Justice.
There are rumours that the President also intends to remove the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Jean Mensa and her deputies, with some prominent members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) claiming “they are not fit for purpose.”
But speaking at the Presidential Media Encounter at the Jubilee House on Wednesday, President Mahama said he remains committed to Ghana’s constitution and democratic governance, while assuring that his government will give democracy a chance to strive.
“Look in my face, do I look like a Supreme Leader?” the President joked while borrowing the words of the late John Evans Atta Mills who asked a journalist in 2011 whether he (Mills) looked like a cat hunter, when questioned about his intent to remove then Chief Justice Georgina Wood.
The President indicated that he is dedicated to democracy and reiterated that his party will not use its absolute majority in Parliament arbitrarily.
“I am a democrat through and through. Even when we attained two-thirds of Parliament, I said we were not going to use it to ride roughshod over the Minority. We are going to give an opportunity for democracy to flourish,” President Mahama assured.
He continued that although Ghanaians gave the NDC an overwhelming endorsement in the 2024 general election, “we do not intend to use our two-third majority to steamroll our democracy.”
He, however, indicated that the NDC’s numbers in parliament presents an opportunity to make certain amendments to the constitution, something that could not be done in the past due to hung parliament and other related matters.
“It wasn’t meant to turn Ghana into a dictatorship. They gave it to us in order that we could carry out reforms to make our governance better. And I think that we stand a very good chance with that two-third majority to finally move the amendments to the constitution that we have all wanted,” President Mahama said.
“In the past because we’ve had hung parliament and all that. We couldn’t make any progress because there are some of those amendments for which you need an overwhelming majority. So, Ghanaians have given us that opportunity and said ‘look, go ahead and do these things’ so that we can have a better constitution that takes Ghana for many more generations to come.”
The President further assured that “But certainly, I’m not on the way to becoming a Supreme Leader or an autocrat.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak