General News of Thursday, 9 September 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2021-09-09Ghana should not be complacent amid Guinea coup - Agyeman-Duah
CEO of Kufuor Foundation, Prof Baffour Agyeman-Dua
• West Africa has experienced three coups alone in 2021
• Some Ghanaians have expressed mixed concerns about the coup in Guinea
• Prof Baffour Agyeman-Duah says this is not the time to be complacent
In the wake of the coup that recently happened in West Africa’s Guinea, Ghana has been urged to be vigilant.
Prof.
Read full articleBaffour Agyeman-Duah, the Chief Executive Officer of the John Kufuor Foundation, added that there is the need for the country’s democratic institutions to rather wake up, reports citinewsroom.com.
He cited the recent Afrobarometer surveys conducted by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) that showed a waning of Ghana’s democracy as an example. According to him, this is indicative of the need for confidence to be reposed in the democracy that we practice.
“I think it's dangerous to think we are different. We cannot be complacent… We should never let our guards down; we have to continually strengthen our institutions of democracy.
“If you look at Afrobarometer surveys, it is clear that in recent times, Ghanaians’ support for democracy has fallen. That is an indication that even here, people have serious issues with democracy because it is not delivering the way we thought it would, that challenges our political leaders to bring confidence back to our democratic processes,” he said.
West Africa has been faced with three coups in this year alone: two successful coups in Mali, and one attempted coup in Niger, heightening concerns about a political crisis and extremist tendencies in the sub-region.
This has formed part of the fears that Prof. Agyeman-Duah has, stating that the region could return to the “terrible years” where the majority of its leaders were from the military if the right measures are not put in place.
He therefore urged the entire populace to ensure that they make “emerging coups” a “greater concern.”
The leader of the Special Forces in Guinea, 41-year-old Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, seized the country’s 83-year-old president, Alpha Conde on Sunday, declaring a coup and suspending the country’s constitution.
The ECOWAS has since suspended the country over the military action.
