SONA 2024: 1992 Constitution Has Served Us Well – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is pleased with the work the 1992 Constitution of the country has done in nurturing and sustaining democracy.

Delivering the State of the Nation Address on February 27, he said the document was not perfect but has paid its dues to the people of Ghana for the past 32 years.

“It is a sacred document that should not be tampered with lightly, but, I hasten to add, our Constitution did not descend from heaven, we, Ghanaians, drew it up to serve our needs, and we can amend it to suit our changing needs and circumstances. We should work towards finding a consensus on the changes that the majority of Ghanaians want made to the Constitution.”

Addressing mantras that military rule is the best for Ghana, the President posited that people who have lived through such an era in the past would in no way vouch for the rule of the all-powerful, cannot-be-questioned Messiahs, liberators, and deities in military uniform as they are called.

“Mr Speaker, we in Ghana have had our fair share of political instability and experimentation about how we should govern ourselves. There might be new names being ascribed to some of the supposed new ideas being canvassed by some today, but I daresay, on close examination, we would discover they are not new, we have tried them here, and they have failed.”

“It might sound new to some, but those of us who have been around for a while have heard the argument made passionately that democracy was not a suitable form of Government if we wanted rapid development. It is a tired argument that was regularly used by coup d’etat apologists.

“It is also not new to have political parties and politics, in general, being denigrated, indeed, there used to be national campaigns of fear waged against politics and political parties. It took time and it took long battles, but, in the end, a consensus did emerge, and we opted for a multi-party democratic form of Government under the Constitution, which ushered in the Fourth Republic,” he recounted.