Lawyer and Researcher, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, says Ghanaians should not be fixated on constitutional longevity to the detriment of how citizens build a just society.
According to him, the argument that Ghana’s constitution is old and thus must be protected does not sit right with the citizens’ quest for an equitable nation.
Speaking on JoyNews’4th Edition of the Change Speakers’ Series on the need for a new constitution, he noted that it was time the country breaks its fascination with things considered old and untouchable in favour of equity and justice.
“We cannot be fixated over constitutional longevity to the detriment of how we build a just Society together. Old Constitutions do not produce justice just because they are old. There is nothing more detrimental to nation building than a blind fascination with things considered old and untouchable. If not, we become the abused wife who is still devoted to his abusive and alcoholic husband because she does not know how to live differently.
“In fact, in 1980, when Samuel Doe and a small number of soldiers overthrew President William Tolbert in Liberia, they were also overthrowing a Constitution that had been in force since 1847. Let the Liberian example be our guiding post. Old Constitutions do not stop Coups, only a true democracy that guarantees for its citizens the fruits of justice and the equality of opportunity and prosperity,” he said.
Barker-Vormawor stressed that the 1992 constitution has lost the capacity to generate a framework for justice or to secure for us the blessings of equal opportunity and prosperity.
“Its soul and spirit have been compromised by a generation of greed and decay,” he said.
He said the 1992 Constitution has been complicit in the exclusion and violence that has characterised Ghana’s democracy for the past 30 years thus justifying his call for a new constitution.
“A Republic where soldiers can walk into and brutalize an entire community because one of them lost his yam phone. Where our military can with the blessings of our president and his appointees descend on a community with the heavy machinery our taxes paid for, to lash, slash and maim over 2000 people in Ashaiman because one of their own had been killed by thieves.
“And when they are done, they gloat on national TV in front of an impotent President and a demoralized people. Where those with access and privilege, members of the ruling class, call the Military secretly to congratulate them for unleashing their terror and inhumanity on us!” he said.
“And Yet our Constitution keeps silent? Speak if you are alive! Protect us if you are not dead! When those charged with giving life to a constitution can look the other way as so many of our people hunger and die, without any sense of obligation or shame; when Ghanaians are killed at will and randomly with impunity from Ejura to Techiman; when our existence as citizens is only tolerated by a political class that has not yet to found the way to get rid of us; where our cry for the Freedom and Justice our father’s promised us is mocked; How dare you tell me that this is a Constitutional Democracy,” he added.
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