The writer
Any form of dictatorship or a remote idea of coup d’état cannot be the surest vector for shaping the future of communities, and our beloved country as a whole. Let me tell you my story.
My family was harassed, intimidated, and finally arrested by ex-President Rawlings’ vicious military government. This led to my father being exiled to Togo with his brothers in the early and mid-80s, when the late Ex-President Rawlings took over.
It was quite a trauma to the entire family. One would have thought it would end there after the country seemed to be ushered into a democratic dispensation in 1992. Oh boy, it did not.
The harassment continued unabated. My father had to endure all kinds of humiliating arrests under President Rawlings’ rule and, as late as 1996, our house was constantly raided and searched under the guise of national security interests.
Experience
Ironically, none of these led to a single charge. It was just the display of military rule and power. I grew up seeing military men (soldiers) around my house all the time. You can imagine the emotional and psychological trauma a kid like myself had to endure. These stressful events shattered my sense of security, making me feel helpless and anxious in a perilous world. Coup(s) can never be the solution.
Contrary to popular views of coups by nitwits as remedies against alleged non-performing governments, in the end, they tend to make matters worse for the citizenry.
In fact, the performance analysis of Ghana’s socioeconomic and governance indicators conducted by iRIS Research shows that the country is making progress in several areas. In addition to improved access to electricity, youth literacy rate is at 93% and overall literacy at 79%. Life expectancy has increased from 57 years to 64 years, unemployment is declining, among other things.
However, but for COVID-19, the economy was growing at an average rate of 7% from 2017 to 2019. These development indicators are further testament that our country is on the ascendancy albeit slow-paced. I believe that we can we find innovative ways to even accelerate growth of these socioeconomic indicators? Yes, we can!
I do not want to remind Ghanaians the great lengths we have gone to make our country a shining example across the sub-Sahara region. The country may be sick, but it does not deserve to die. Our democracy may be fraught with its own challenges, as with all democracies across the world, but it does not in any way justify a truncation of our statehood which is built on sound principles of democracy and the rule of law to be replaced with intimidation, impunity and chaos.
Patriotic
Our ability to cause the change that we all yearn for should put in us a patriotic duty not to give up on Ghana. It is our homeland and should collectively strive to make it strong to witness development worthy of emulation.
As found by the Afro barometer survey, Ghanaians are mostly at peace with our democratic approach to governance. They just want democracy to deliver more than political goods. Ghanaians want their democracy to address bread and butter issues – a very legitimate expectation which we must all work together to achieve. Let us prove to the world that we are a country that can rise up to any adversity and succeed.
Let us ground our democracy in statute. Let us put our wheels to the shoulders and work assiduously to resolve the myriad of challenges facing our democracy. Let us reinvigorate our ‘can-do’ spirit imbued in us by our first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah and founding fathers. Coups d’état are not a welcoming development and should never be an option!
I do not wish on my worst enemy what my family endured. It is against this backdrop that I call on all well-meaning Ghanaians to do their bid to help us deepen our democracy, and the democratic institutions we have to sustain our current environment – where we are all equal and where transparency, good governance and credibility stand tall.
I remain a citizen!
About The Author
