The chairman of the National Democratic Congress, Mr. Asiedu Nketia, has stated that the point of the demonstration against Bank of Ghana is to make the government unpopular.
According to him, protests are one of the tools in a democracy for checks on government.
He further indicated that protests are responses of the people to a bad government that refuses to listen to the requests of its people.
“That is the point, to make government unpopular as you say. If government does what is right there will be no protests. If the government does not do the right thing and the attention of the population is drawn to it by the protest, then the government will be unpopular. That way, next time they will do the right thing.”
Mr. Asiedu Nketia
He mentioned that the leadership of the protest had planned to submit a petition to the Governor of the central bank. However, the police’s decision to stop them from sending their delegates to submit the petition is another sign of suppression of the rights of citizens in Ghana’s defective democracy.
Mr. Asiedu Nketia blamed the police’s justification of the bank as a security zone as government’s attempts to suppress protests in the country as in the case of the #OCCUPPYJUBILLEEHOUSEPROTEST busing arrest.
He further explained the rationale of the #OCUPPYBOG demonstration. According to the Chairman, the demonstration is in protest against the Governor’s mismanagement of the central bank.
“The issue we are talking about has to do with the mismanagement of the central bank. It is the governors’ decision to print money or not. So if you print money and you run down a bank you don’t go around blaming people. So we are saying the governor has mismanaged the central bank. We don’t see any reason why he should remain there. In the private sector if you can’t perform you leave. If we leave public business that way we may not progress.”
Mr. Asiedu Nketia
Additionally, he charged the youth to take a central role in the demonstration
“This demonstration is more for the youth because it is their future that is being mortgaged. The youth that is coming up they assets of the nation and when you leave, you are handing over a messed future for the youth. That is why we are calling on the youth to rise and fight for their future.”
Mr. Asiedu Nketia
Mr. Nketia critiqued the bank for its failure amidst the impression of saving the banking sector and overspending.
“So from the time they took over and created the impression that the banking sector was collapsing, instead of deploying GHS 9 billion they thought that they should do some magic to save the banking sector, they used 22 billion to save the banking sector. So after spending the GHS 22 billion on the banking sector, is still not safe? When they were printing the 77 billion, they denied it in parliament.”
Mr. Asiedu Nketia
He also indicated that, notwithstanding the decision of the Governor to resign or not after the protest, the statement of the demonstrators would have been made. He cited how the parliamentary probe employed by the minority in the case of the Finance minister did not yield the desired results but still made a statement.
According to him, the national problems boil down to a lack of credibility among leaders. He insists that a democratic nation cannot be built without trust and credible leadership. He blamed the lack of credible leadership for the country’s woes.
“We have to deal with the confidence crisis. Even when you catch leaders in the act, they still deny it. We have a very defective democracy. Say what you want and we will do what we want. They (Citizens) have been reduced to spectatorship and not active participants.”
Mr. Asiedu Nketia
For him, the intransigence of the president is to blame. He claims that the president and his cohorts feel like they are entitled so much that they have destroyed our democracy.
He therefore argued that Ghana no longer enjoys the true features of democracy like the rule of law, and self-determination, among others.
Mr. Nketia, however, commended the spirit of tolerance that characterizes Ghanaians, having protected the country’s democracy from a coup.
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