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Former leader of the People’s National Convention (PNC) Dr. Edward Nasigre Mahama has indicated that Ghana’s woes can be attributed to the passage of the 1992 Constitution.
Dr. Mahama, who has been involved in Ghanaian politics for several decades, believes that politicians can be faulted for accepting the provisional constitution at the time despite the good intentions to eliminate the military rule.
In an exclusive interview on e.tv Ghana Fact Sheet with Samuel Eshun, the Ghanaian medical doctor and politician reflected on his 1992 campaign with Dr Hilla Liman to encourage Ghanaians to accept the provisional constitution as it was.
“Politicians can be faulted for how far Ghana has come. We should accept the blame and I’ll go back to the basis of what I consider the problem. In 1992 I campaigned with Dr.Hilla Liman across this country for people to accept the provisional constitution as it is. The idea was that we wanted to get rid of military government but we knew the constitution had some problems with it,”.
“Our hope was that once the military got out of the way as thinking beings and as citizens who have rights and responsibilities, we would change the constitution and remove certain things that were there and shouldn’t have been there. 30years on and we are still operating the constitution,” he added.
He pointed out that Ghanaians who go abroad and succeed often struggle when they return to Ghana because the systems in place are flawed. He stated that the foundation of any system is the Constitution.
“I’ve always said that Ghanaians go abroad and they succeed they come back to Ghana and they fail. Why because the systems are wrong and the one thing that creates a system is the constitution. So if the constitution we are operating with has defects in it, so defective that it ought to be replaced and we don’t change it then we’ll continue to have these problems,” he said.
Dr Mahama further indicated that Ghana’s challenges can only be overcome with an amendment of the constitution that sets a strong foundation for a better system. He hopes the country’s leaders will heed his advice and prioritize constitutional reform for the good of the nation.
“So I think we need to have a system and the system starts with the constitution that doesn’t have indemnity clauses, a constitution that doesn’t ask half of ministers to come from Parliament, a constitution that doesn’t put the cart before a horse.”