We alert Ghanaians about the serpents in our country who are on the prowl to destabilise our democracy, the envy of many in the sub-region and the African continent.
Remember the danger that the serpent posed to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and to date mankind is suffering from the inability of our first parents to resist the lies of the devil.
Today, Ghanaians are faced with similar threat to their existence as a group of people identified as the NDC with allies from some journalists, certain members of academia, analysts and civil society have decided to engage in lies and misinformation to achieve their agenda of regime change.
We have no problem with any group that thinks that the Akufo-Addo government has failed the people and for which reason any plan by the NPP to ‘break the eight’ must be derailed.
Politics is about a contest of ideas and we encourage everybody to suggest ways by which the governance architecture can be strengthened. But the pathway chosen by the NDC and its collaborators would not help to sustain our democratic governance, and the peace and stability of the country.
The back and forth engagement between the NDC and the police before last Tuesday’s demonstration must have put fear and panic in most residents of Accra.
We must commend the police for acting very professionally and ensuring that the demonstrators kept to the approved route. The demonstrators also kept their cool, but except for some minor skirmishes no violence occurred.
When the citizens exercise their democratic rights such as freedom of assembly, we deepen the frontiers of civil rights. However, there is a departure from our principles and those of the demonstrators simply because in the exercise of their rights they brazenly trample on the rights of others.
The framers of our Fourth Republican Constitution, took into account our past to include strong bill of rights in the supreme law of the land. That is why freedom of the press and expression is guaranteed by the constitution, but in order to protect the right of others, another provision gives a proviso such as national security, public morality, public interest and the reputation of others for which freedom of the press cannot be absolute. Nonetheless, journalists and commentators do not think that in the exercise of their rights, they ought to respect their neighbours’ too. Listen to Mr Xavier Sosu, the MP for Madina, who took liberties to the extreme last Tuesday during the demonstration to utter all kinds of unprintable things about the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr Ernest Addison and perhaps some government officials.
We are told that Sosu after the end of whatever influence he was under has rendered an apology. We can only say that has come late in the day as his despicable behaviour that exposed him as an honourable Member of Parliament had already gone viral. Maybe the experience would give the opportunity to treat his verbal diarrhoea knowing very well that in the exercise of any bill of rights there are booby traps.
We must sound a clarion call to all our compatriots, especially leaders of the NDC, to accept that in the world democracy may be the worst form of government but till date there is no other credible alternative.
Let us repeat that we bear people who want to demonstrate everyday no grudge provided they are sure their actions would not hinder other people’s choices to earn their daily bread. That is why in the so-called civilised democracies, they try to limit their public protests because there are repercussions such as the trial of Donald Trump, former President of the United States of America.
It is becoming clear by the day that the NDC and their allies have no messages for the 2024 general election and for that matter see demonstrations as the vehicle to make the NPP government unpopular.
Ghanaians must refuse this bait of the NDC because if the NPP is removed from power how would John Mahama and his team manage the affairs of the state.
The NDC since Mahama was elected flagbearer has tactically refused to tell Ghanaians how they hope to take us out of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout and also make sure ‘dumsor’ does not resurrect.
Even their allies who call themselves financial analysts are unable to prescribe the alternatives that the government and for that matter the central bank could have adopted to avoid the current situation in the country.
From 2020 to 2022, we were all in Ghana and witnessed the tremendous efforts of the government to protect lives because, as President Akufo-Addo said, his government has the capacity to restore the economy but not lives. Hence the government looked for money anywhere to protect lives during COVID-19 in the hope that one day no matter how bad the economy is battered, we can all work hard to revive the economy.
We believe that is the task that confronts us now, but not the rhetoric and lies to cause disaffection for the government. We are sure those calling President Akufo-Addo names today including Mr Mahama and Asiedu Nketsia enjoyed some of the freebies the government introduced during the COVID-19 era. They have been in government before and they know those services were provided for the people with money.
At the time the government finances were stretched beyond their limits, the revenues were not forthcoming because the ports and borders were closed, offices and schools were closed during the lockdown. Hospitals that had to run emergency services were given extra budget to buy more medical consumables and pay allowances to health professionals.
The NDC understand the psyche of the Ghanaian as a forgetful species of human being as Mahama said, so they have chosen the Goebbelsian lies to “blindfold” the people from seeing that our present was not caused by the current government because of its incompetence.