Vice President of the think tank Imani Centre for Policy and Education (Imani Africa) Selorm Branttie has criticized President Nana Akufo-Addo for failing to address Ghana’s challenges as President suppressing demonstrations even with his own history as a person who demonstrated against Governments in the 70s and 90s.
Mr. Branttie recalled how Ghanaians could demonstrate freely under
the Presidency of John Mahama but are now unable to do so willingly under
President Akufo-Addo.
His
remarks come in the wake of the arrest and brutalization of protesters as they
gathered Thursday morning in Accra to embark on a protest over bad governance
dubbed OccupyJulorbiHouse.
“We
did this in broad daylight and went to the jubilee house. We even presented
petitions. We talked to the press, police commanders, and all.
Today, even these, we can’t do it.
Yet instead of leading your people with the best and
brightest to solve our problems, you are finding ways to take pensioners’
monies, beg for reparations from the slave trade, build open gravel pits in the
name of false piety, and enable a corrupt judiciary and weaponizing a bunch of
thugs disguised as policemen and officers of the peace.
Yet your claim to fame was rallying
protests in the 70s and 90s.
Are you not ashamed?” He quizzed.
Scores of demonstrators, organized by Democracy Hub,
were swiftly rounded up by officers of the Ghana Police Service for merely
gathering to protest. The police accused them of acting unlawfully and
violating the Public Order Act.
However prominent legal practitioners have argued that the police had no
legal basis for arresting them. The police said that they stopped the
demonstration because they had filed an application for an injunction against
the demonstrators, which they had served on the lawyers of the demonstrators.
No comments