|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Member of Parliament for Ellembelle, Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, has lambasted the government for what he described as a plot to use the military to cower critical voices against the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration.
Recent developments involving soldiers in Ejura and Wa, he said, are ample evidence of the administration’s intolerance to dissenting voices and an attempt to squash those voices.
He stressed that the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election incident during which an armed gang invaded a peaceful polling station and shot people at close-ranged is subtle being exported to other events using the Ghana Armed Forces.
According to him, Ghanaians have to be very worried about this development and stressed that the existence of the military is to protect and not to open fire on innocent civilians and kill them.
Read more:
- Politics is vital element of democratic governance – Freddie Blay
- Domelevo calls for district/regional budgets
- Chief and people of Kandiga boycott 2021 census
Mr. Kofi Buah made these statements in Parliament last Friday when spoke on the Ejura incident where two protesters were shot dead and others injured by armed military officers and Wa, where soldiers went on a rampage and assaulted residents.
The former Energy Minister lamented that Ghanaians can no longer talk about their worsening economic situation, nonetheless criticize the government and when they do they become targets.
He said, “We can’t even demonstrate. You know what has happened in the last few months about young people in Ghana attempting to express their views about the hardship they are facing.”
“They have the right to complain but they’ve basically been blocked from demonstrating.”
He expressed pleasure that the youth wing of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has decided to embark on a demonstration and dared the government to ‘gun them down.’
According to him, the planned demonstration does not need police permission because such right is enshrined in the 1992 Constitution of the Republic.
Every Ghanaian, he said, has the right to express himself about the conditions in the country and also has the right to protest
Mr. Armah Buah rebuffed arguments that the Defense Minister has promised proper investigations would be conducted into the Ejura and Wa incidents, and asked how many times the Minister has offered such vain pledges.
He noted that there has been a growing pattern of inconsistency in the investigation of such matters and asked, “What has happened to the Emile Short Report on the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election incident?
“The people of Ghana have lost faith and that’s the reality. They’ve lost faith and just because Ghanaians are quiet, that does not mean they are not…. It is just that people are tired.”
“I mean they have to survive; they can’t even make ends meet and on top of that when you want to open your mouth to express something that is enshrined in our Constitution you’ll be shot at? In a country like ours and not by anybody else but the military that is supposed to protect us,” he queried?
Mr. Buah described the development as an outrage and urged every meaningful Ghanaian and everybody who loves this country to speak out.
Frontpageghana.com/Ghana
