Walkout to protest authoritarian tendencies of President - Minority

The Minority has said its walkout from the President’s State of the Nation Address in Parliament last Thursday was to protest against what it described as the fascist and authoritarian tendencies that have conspired to threaten the health of the country’s democracy.

“From the onset, we need to make it clear that these are not normal times in the democratic trajectory of our country,” it said.

Addressing the press after the walkout, the Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said: “Our walkout was, therefore, a bold protest against tyranny and to send a very clear message directly to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that enough is enough.”

According to Mr Iddrisu, the tyranny demonstrated by the President had caused the government to compel the Electoral Commission (EC) to compile a new voters register in a bid to rig the 2020 general election, close down radio stations with political affiliations to the opposition and stifle media freedom.

He also mentioned the President’s refusal to implement the recommendations of the Emile Short Commission on the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election last year, shielding indicted appointees, refusing to disband the illegal Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team and the removal of the former Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Charlotte Osei.

Growing impunity

“We shall no longer accept the growing levels of impunity and unconstitutionalism masked by duplicitous and hollow rhetoric,” he said.

The Minority Leader said since becoming the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo had conducted the affairs of state with the kind of tyranny, despotism and authoritarianism that frightened many objective observers.

He said in the face of extreme provocations, the Minority had exercised restraint and urged the President to depart from “his perilous path that puts the democracy of our country at great risk”.

“Sadly, matters are totally out of control. The democracy we all toiled and sacrificed to establish is now threatened by the high-handedness of President Akufo-Addo,” he said.

According to him, as Ghanaians continued to witness heightened impunity from officialdom, the President had refused to implement the recommendations of the Emile Short Commission following the lawlessness that occurred during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election in January 2019.

Shielding appointees

To make matters worse, he said, the President continued to shield his indicted appointees, conferring on them more authority to perpetrate mayhem ahead of the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections.