Arthur Kobina Kennedy: Ghana’s lawless democracy

Earlier this month, as we have done 3 other times under the 4th Republic, we peacefully transferred power from the governing party to the opposition party to global applause.

But was this transfer “peaceful”? 4 of our fellow Ghanaians died in election-related violence on top of the 9 who died 4 years earlier. And during the counting of election results, there were intimidation and coercion forcing the EC to abandon collation efforts repeatedly.

Vigilantes associated with the NDC have invaded offices and even private homes to take over offices and to reportedly prevent theft of public property. The culmination of this was the clash between NDC small-scale miners and soldiers that left about 9 miners dead in Obuasi.

To be fair, these NDC vigilantes are not the first to take the law into their own hands. 8 years ago, NPP vigilantes stormed a court in Kumasi to release some colleagues after they had chased the Regional Security Co-Ordinator out of his office.

And none of the NPP leaders condemning vigilantism now saw anything wrong then. So, election related vigilante activity– from Issa Mobila to Kumbungu to Atiwa and Ayawaso etc have been sadly endemic to the 4th Republic. Unfortunately, this lawlessness is not just restricted to election periods and vigilantes.

President Rawlings assaulted his own VP in the presence of his entire cabinet in 1996. Before then, NDC vigilantes and/or security operatives had killed some Kumi Preko demonstrators in 1995.

And in 1999, on the orders of President Rawlings, a $6.5 hotel belonging to Alhaji Yusif Ibrahim was destroyed on the orders of President Rawlings. We later paid a judgment debt. But this problem was not confined to sojaman Rawlings.

In 2021, soldiers had been on the premises of Parliament during the election of our Speaker. Then in 2023, the Ghana Armed Forces, ” conducted a swoop in Ashaiman and its environs in a manhunt for some criminals, who are suspected to have stabbed and killed a young soldier”.

In this, as in the death of citizens during elections, there was not a word from either the President of the Republic or the IGP. Indeed, the IGP needed a directive from the new President to investigate the death of his fellow citizens! Members of government routinely bully members of the public out of their lands.

Unfortunately, even our Judiciary is a central part of this culture of lawlessness. Important cases–like the Domelovo case and the Amo election case after the 1996 election–are blatantly ignored for obviously partisan reasons. Other cases are heard with lightning speed– like the Speaker’s case– for blatantly partisan reasons.

Panels are reconstituted in the middle of cases and judges are removed from cases they have finished trying. As Kan Dapaah said, “It is not good if one side wins too much”.

But it is not just the Judiciary that is complicit. Media have beaten war drums on behalf of partisan and perverse causes. And the clergy can find moral excuses for every immoral cause–like building a national Cathedral with public funds even while good churches are building schools.

When the clergy cannot call out a leader for using God’s name in vain, the nation is in trouble. Finally, political parties have been turned into private fiefdoms of unscrupulous leaders where our laws and morality are honoured in the breach. We cannot behave as if our laws don’t matter during elections.

We cannot be a nation under the rule of law and behave as if some are above the law. We cannot have media who promote partisanship and vigilantism in a democracy. We cannot have a democracy without democrats and what former President Nana Akufo-Addo called, “democratic accountability “.

Let our parties look at best practices elsewhere and be more democratic , transparent and accountable. Let the media do some soul-searching.

Those who threaten freedom of speech are not just bad strong men in government. Wealthy private interest and criminal organizations can destroy those and our development.

Let our priests watch the the Catholic priest admonishing President Trump a few days ago and rediscover what their purpose in our polity is– the speaking of truth to power. Next, let our security Forces enforce our damn laws regardless of who is in power.

An IGP who requires a Presidential directive to investigate the murder of his fellow citizens has betrayed his oath. Let our judges not sway to politics like clothes on a drying line does to the wind. Democracy cannot grow independent of the law. It is undergirded by the fair and firm enforcement of laws.

Let’s be “citizens, not spectators”. May God bless Ghana.

The post Arthur Kobina Kennedy: Ghana’s lawless democracy first appeared on 3News.

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