President John Mahama
Democracy is what we have chosen for ourselves as a country.
It is a choice which came on the heels of bumpy and bloody experiences with clueless and bloody military adventurists. Unfortunately, the traces of the reign of terror and bad governance the National Democratic Congress (NDC) progenitors foisted on the country linger on our political space. President John Mahama boasted about the NDC’s Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) bloody antecedence during one of his political campaigns.
This accounts for violence and mischief remaining preferences of the party decades after the PNDC and its bloody baggage were confined to our dark history.
When the PNDC junta gave way to democracy, it was because Ghanaians conscious about what they endured under military dictatorship, resolved that ‘never again’ would they allow this to fester in their motherland.
The Magna Carta, the Constitution, which gave meaning to our choice of democracy, was crafted to ensure that we go the whole hog in the implementation of the attributes of this form of government so the benefits thereof are realised without hindrance.
It is for good purpose therefore that the election of those we want to govern us, their tenure and limitations, independent institutions inter alia and their roles are clearly spelt out in this Magna Carta.
We have often clapped for ourselves on how good we have traversed on the path of democracy, a self-praise which is beginning to lose its veracity.
Democracy today is under siege, its attributes as contained in the Constitution are beginning to lose grounds because of deliberate and subtle shenanigans by government to achieve a certain political goal which is anything but in consonance with a government of the people and for the people.
Our country, which is listing on the ocean of democracy as one of the bastions of this most adored forms of government, is under the threat of a toxic executive attack.
The no love lost relationship between the John Mahama-led NDC and the judiciary is household knowledge steeped in history.
The murder of three high court judges by the forebears of the NDC is part of our dark political past.
Being one of the bastions of democracy, the judiciary is especially constitutionally independent of the executive, so this form of government can stand on its feet.
Unfortunately, we are beginning to witness breaches of democracy which are affronts to the survival of the judiciary in our body-politics.
Having worked on a plot to remove two key persons in the democracy architecture of the country, the NDC has presented petitions to the President for the removal from office of the Chief Justice, Mrs. Gertrude Torkornoo.
It is the decision of the NDC-leaning Council of State which would pave the way for the empanelling of a committee to look into the petition, and hence the realisation of the President’s dream.
The removal of the Chief Justice has one goal and this is indisputable: the replacement of the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC).
To reach the EC boss and indeed the supporting top staff, the President must first remove the Chief Justice, which is what the petitions and other manoeuvres seek to do.
NDC activists too excited about the plot have already stated on social media that President John Mahama should all things equal and their plan goes according to schedule, swear in a new Chief Justice whose name they have bandied around, by July. While this would be a source of elation for the President and the NDC, such an impetus is a dangerous one which would move the country many notches down on the democracy ranking.
Even apolitical persons cannot fail to determine the ongoing plot.
Let them stand up and be counted among the cherishers of democracy, which clearly is under threat. We shall return.