A leading member of Arise-Ghana, Bernard Mornah, has expressed his reservations about the seeming reluctance of the Ghana Police Service to approve the planned Occupy BoG protest by the minority.
According to him, the police is frustrating the plans on the planned demonstration against the Bank of Ghana under the pretext of national security issues. He revealed that the regional commander has wasted the group’s time because the police claimed it has to “take instruction from above”.
“… I think that this is the height of the breakdown of our institutions in this nation; that the regional police commander cannot take a decision to tell the people where the security zone of the Bank of Ghana ends. We on our part, have amended our routes…
“They say they have a problem because the Bank of Ghana is a security zone. So, we have asked them where the end of the security threat to the Bank of Ghana is so that we can terminate there… The regional commander has gone up and down, now you’re telling us that you don’t even agree on the day of protest.”
Bernard Mornah
Addressing the media today, September 11, 2023, Mr Mornah emphasized that he cannot waste his time in such a meeting, where no consensus is guaranteed. Owing to this, he walked out of the meeting with the police.
Justifying his stance, he explained that the indecisiveness of the regional commander is not the best under the circumstance.
“For you to come and tell us you’re not even certain about tomorrow, we are not kids… Who cares about court? If you file application is that to say your application has been granted? So, our lawyers can go and meet them at court to discuss their application while we also do our protest. So, to the best of our knowledge, there’s no injunction whatsoever on our protest.”
Bernard Mornah
Minority concedes to some demands
On his part, Tamale Central legislator, Mahama Ayariga, equally expressed disappointment in the turn of event. He noted that the police after requesting the presence of the team, held off for close to 30 minutes before the meeting started.
Nonetheless, he highlighted that when the meeting commenced, both parties agreed on the three issues barring the planned protest.
“… They had never opposed to us embarking on a protest march. The issues that they had which they articulated in their affidavit which they filed in court were that they were afraid of a military coup, we were going to pass through Makola market, and they had objected, and that our destination is a security zone.”
Mahama Ayariga
During the meeting, Mr Ayariga underscored that the leadership of the protest “are not unreasonable people”, although certain demands by the police are beyond their purview. To this end, he noted that the group has the right to demonstrate and will act accordingly.
“… As for the coup, we don’t prevent coups, the military are there, they should go and resolve those issues with them… So, we went back to the route that they initially proposed that we should start from Obra Spot, go through Adabraka and then their initial termination point was Independence Square. So, we said okay, we are accepting your route and they agreed…”
Mahama Ayariga
It will be recalled that on September 1, lawyers for the Minority in Parliament filed an affidavit at the registry of the High Court in Accra, opposing the police application to stop them from picketing in front of the Bank of Ghana.
It indicated that in collaboration with Arise Ghana, other Civil Society Organisations and well-meaning Ghanaians, it has resolved to embark on the historic protest march to demand the immediate resignation of the Governor of the Bank of Ghana and his two Deputies, for superintending a colossal loss of GHS66.8 billion in 2022 alone.
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