Contrary to those calling on the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to fix the country, the National Chairman of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Nana Ofori Owusu believes the root cause of the problem is the country’s 1992 constitution.
Describing the 1992 constitution as ‘deformed’ and ‘faulty’ the vociferous politician said,“the NPP government can only fix the country if it first tackles the constitution”.
The citizenry, particularly the youth, have risen against the government over what they say is bad decisions and poor management of the economy.
Commenting on the #FixTheCountry campaign on social media on Peace FM on Monday, May 10, 2021, which was monitored by Today, the PPP’s national chairman said, the 1992 constitution was the cause of all “our problems”.
According to him, “the constitution that governs us as a nation needs reforms. The power of the executive is too much. We need the Legislature and the Judiciary to also be as strong as the executive . . . in fixing the country, we must fix our constitution which is the blueprint of our development because the people are asking for development”.
He claimed that the constitution was made to pacify a former dictator of the country which means “you can’t move on as a people when you have not fixed the foundation of the constitution that gives absolute power to the executive to be able to move on to appease a former dictator. Those things are fundamental. So, fixing the constitution is part of fixing the country because it’s the foundation of the movement of a people to be able for us to get rapid development”.
To this end, Nana Ofori called on the government to heed his advice because until “they do, there will be no progress in Ghana”.
“You need a system and a structure that drives development. And there is a faulty constitution that is not helping into driving the development, so we’re saying that, in addition to fix the country, fix the constitution. Fix the constitution because the constitution itself has given us room why we’re having these challenges that we are having today”, he said.
The #FixTheCountry hashtag was started by popular Ghanaian Twitter influencer, KalyJay (whose real name is Joshua Boye-Doe) in reaction to push the concerns of citizens and demand accountability from the government.
Some celebrities and political activists later joined the campaign and the hashtag and its variants including #fixthecountrynow, #nameandshame, #fixitnow, #fixmotherghana have been at the top of the Twitter trends for over a week.
The tweets have expressed displeasure over successive government’s failure to improve the living standards of Ghanaians. Among the concerns include dumsor, unemployment, galamsey, and poor healthcare systems which they cite as proof of successive governments’ mismanagement of the country.
The conveners intended to gather supporters for a demonstration at the Black Star Square in Accra on May 9, 2021 but had to alter their plans after the Ghana Police Service secured an injunction against it.
The conveners are at the Supreme Court challenging the injunction with the hearing scheduled for June 8, 2021.
By Atta KWAKU BOADI || Today