#FixTheCountry Protestors Challenge Government’s Trickery To Stop “Kume Preko” Demo

Whatsup New can report that the Akufo Addo administration has been thrown into a serious state of hysteria over the brewing youth uprising dubbed #FixTheCountry and had resorted to trickery to derail a planned demonstration by the group scheduled for May 9, 2021.

The Ghana Police Service (GPS), under the auspices of the government, had restrained the protestors, basing their argument on Executive Instruments E. I 395 and E. I 37. 

Both of these legislations enacted under the signature of President Akufo Addo to enforce lockdowns during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana are no longer in force the #FixTheCountry movement says.

When the government caught wind of the demonstration, it invited a few representatives of the group in an attempt to “dialogue” them out of the planned protest. All the top security chiefs were at the dialogue table, including the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Interior, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of National Security, the Attorney General, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Communications Authority (NCA) and about 10 different representatives from the various security agencies.

But while the #FixTheCountry representatives were locked up in this high-level “dialogue”, the GPS which is directly under the purview of the Ministry of Interior sneaked behind to quickly secure a restraining from the Accra High Court presided over by Justice Ruby Aryeteey.

In the statement communicating the restraining order, Effia Tenge, the Greater Accra Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO) stated that the restraining order “follows an affidavit filed by the police against conveners of FixTheCountry protest march pursuant to section 1(6) of the Public Order Act, 1994 (491).

However, the well-coordinated, but decentralised group made up of hundreds of thousands of disgruntled Ghanaian youth have replied to the Police, saying that the entire restraining order was based on faulty premises and legislations that are no longer in effect.

For instance, the group wrote in its May 6, 2021 reply that the Imposition of Restrictions Instrument 2020 (E.I 395) that the Ghana police used to restrain the protestors, citing the Coronavirus pandemic protocols, was no more in force.

“We have examined the above-mentioned Executive Instrument closely and have formed the view that the Instrument which was adopted under the hand of the President in December 2020 is no longer in force,” wrote lawyers to the #FixTheCountry group.

The group has also challenged the Police Service that it was subverting the constitution of Ghana by preventing them to embark on their peaceful march.

“In the interest of fairness, we have strenuously tried to find any other legal instrument (including Acts of Parliament; Executive Instruments, e.t.c) which perhaps purports to grant the Police a power to deny requests for the exercise of rights under Article 21(d) and (f) of the Constitution; despite the clear instruction from the Supreme Court in New Patriotic Party v. Inspector-General of Police [1993-94] 2 GLR 459,” the lawyers challenged the Police.

The group made up of young people in showbiz, media, civil society organisations and pressure groups had set May 9, 2021 as their designated protest day saying it will be a re-enactment and the celebration of the 26th anniversary of the famous “Kume Preko” demonstration that was led by now-President Akufo Addo and a few political and media stalwarts.

Kume Preko was an anti-government demonstration that was staged in opposition to the Value Added Tax (VAT) initiative which was introduced under the Jerry John Rawlings administration. “Kume Preko” in Akan translates to „You may as well kill me”, as the demonstrators warned that they were ready to die for the cause.

The #FixTheCountry Movement is borne out of the draconian introduction of killer taxes and new levies by the Akufo Addo administration in a demonstration of tone-deafness particularly in the face of economic hardships in the country and the devastating effects of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.

The group has mushroomed several well-coordinated social media groups of disgruntled youths in what eerily feels like a brewing storm similar to the Arab Spring that virtually destabilised the Middle East and had become a template for subsequent civil uprisings across the world.

The snowballing uprising had started on Sunday, May 2, 2021, against the Akufo Addo administration as the hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians youth bemoan the sorry state of the economy, despite the government having contracted more loans than all governments since independence.

Prominent among the complaints by the youth are sentiments against the rising spate of youth unemployment, abandoned health system, skyrocketing home-renting rates, poor road networks, official connivance with Chinese miners to destroy forest reserves and water bodies across the country and a general lack of commitment to the welfare of Ghanaians citizens. 

The avalanche of anger pouring out of the country’s youthful population has forced political scientists to note that the entire episode could explode into an all-out civil uprising similar to ones in 2019 and 2020 that toppled four governments in Iraq, Sudan, Algeria and Bolivia. Similar uprisings in some 10 other countries like Chile, Ecuador, France, Spain, India, Honk Kong, etc., were forced to make drastic concessions to prevent an all-out blow over.