The Alliance for Footsoldiers Advocacy (AFFA) has revealed that the nature of the intended demonstration by the FixTheCountry Movement is nothing far from a coup d’état.
According to the advocacy group, the planned demonstration by conveners of the Movement must be condemned by all and sundry.
“Alliance for Footsoldiers Advocacy has sighted a correspondence between FixTheCountry convenors and the Ghana Police Service about a planned 3-day armed demonstration in Accra starting from June 4, 2022… It is needless to state that the nature of this intended demonstration by FixTheCountry movement is nothing far from a coup d’état – something the convenors, particularly, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, has been championing publicly for some time now. Reference his Facebook post on 10th February, 2022, which reads, ‘If this e-levy passes after this cake bullshit, I will do the coup myself. Useless Army’.”
Alliance for Footsoldiers Advocacy
Contained in a statement dated June 2, 2022, signed by the Executive Director of AFFA, D.T Adomako, AFFA indicated that the notification to the Police which lists “culture of silence, arrogance of power, the e-levy” among others as reasons for the intended demonstration is jointly signed by Oliver Barker-Vormawor, a “suspected coup monger” standing trial, Okatakyie Afrifa Mensah and Captain Smart; both media practitioners and Benjamine Darko.
The advocacy group noted that while it strongly believes in upholding the 1992 constitution, specifically Article 21 which guarantees citizens right to demonstrate, it is alarmed by the convenors decision to engage a “private security company with weapons to provide security and protection to demonstrators”.
Planned demonstration by FixTheCountry Movement
Additionally, AFFA highlighted that it is equally dumbfounded by the convenors intention to march to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and “demand a slot on GTV to address the nation” and later proceed to the Police headquarters to “demand” a meeting with the IGP and finally “picket at the Jubilee House, the seat of government till June 6, 2022”.
Expressing its disappointment, AFFA called on the media, civil society organisations, the clergy, traditional authorities and the general public to condemn “in no uncertain terms the convenors of the FixTheCountry for their intended coup-styled demonstration”. AFFA emphasized that the peace enjoyed in the country must be protected at all cost.
“Ghana is and has always been an oasis of peace in Africa. We cannot and must not allow a few selfish individuals with bloated ego, masquerading as freedom fighters to subject our dear motherland to a state of anarchy.”
Alliance for Footsoldiers Advocacy
It will be recalled that one of the convenors of the FixTheCountry movement, Okatakyie Afrifa Mensah, responding to the Police statement on the Movement’s intended demonstration on June 1, 2022, stated that the Movement is not lawless. He expressed that the movement’s only motive is to demonstrate against the Agyapa deal, cessation of the Achimota Forest Reserve and not to tamper with the country’s security.
“These are the matters the police should focus its attention on, rather than trying to cause disaffection between us and the people by creating the impression that we are lawless. We are not lawless. We are law-abiding citizens who are going to go according to what the laws of this nation state.”
Okatakyie Afrifa Mensah
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