The Vice President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, has revealed that the office of the citizen is more important than the office of the President.
According to him, citizen action is key in ensuring the survival of a democracy and the recent rise in civil society action against certain government policies such as the Agyapa deal, the E-levy, among others is a welcome opportunity to remind the government of the hierarchy of authority in Ghana.
Justifying his stance, Mr Bentil indicated that when one reads the constitution of Ghana it starts by saying “In the name of the Almighty God, we the people” and it moves on to say that “we have the right to form the government that will guarantee for us the rights and liberties we require”. He explained that in this regard, hierarchy is extremely important and the citizens are prioritized over the President.
“What it tells you is that the President is not the preeminent, so I often put it this way, that the office of the citizen is more important than the office of the President. It is the citizen that sets up a government to do for the citizen what is good for them so that they can live an adequate life.”
Kofi Bentil
Mr Bentil highlighted that it is the duty of the citizenry to hold elected officials and all those in government accountable using all constitutionally available means. He noted that when the country does not have an “active citizenry which has the room to nudge either gently” or through the use of demonstrations to hold government accountable, there is bound to be a “military takeover or people invading with the force of arms overthrowing” the government.
“Now, when you have a situation where the people appointed to be in government for the benefit of citizens are not governing for the benefit of citizens, it is proper that the citizens now rise up to either nudge them gently into proper line or scream or stare them down and shove them into the right light. You must appreciate that there is an alternative to that and we have in this country suffered that alternative.”
Kofi Bentil
Public urged to keep government accountable
Mr Bentil called on the general public and particularly the coalition of civil society organisations to work at maintaining the momentum to keep government accountable to the people and ensuring that the office of the people retains its preeminent position in Ghana’s political realm. He emphasized that this is by design and what “we need to do is to work at making it more constructive” and effective.
“Right now, in the UK, they have gotten rid of their Prime Minister and they’re going through the processes to find a new Prime Minister, and there’s no violence involved. In Ghana we do it every four years; maybe if we develop this bette,r it may be possible at a certain point because in the constitution there are powers for the removal of a President that we will fine-tune our democracy to the point where we can actually remove a President mid-term.”
Kofi Bentil
On his part, convenor for the Arise Ghana Movement, Bernard Mornah, indicated that one of the major reasons why civil society movements are unable to be sustained in the country is due to poaching of its members by political parties and governments. He expressed that over the years, political parties and governments have taken to giving political appointments to civil society actors as a means to silence them and depopulate these movements.
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