JJ Rawlings and Kwaku Azar
Legal luminary and Professor of Accounting Stephen Kwaku Asare has argued that celebrating days when military coup d’états were staged violates the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, adding that “our collective conscience, consciousness and wisdom tell us that celebrating such days can open up healing wounds.
The Professor wonders why former President JJ Rawlings and the National Democratic Congress continue to commemorate the June 4, 1979, and December 31, 1981 coups even though we know it violates our conscience and consciousness and the Constitution.
“In pursuit of national peace and cohesion, nobody celebrates or commemorates February 24, January 13, October 9 or July 5.
This is so because our collective conscience, consciousness and wisdom (CCCW) tell us that celebrating these events will open the scars of “Liberation,” “Redemption,” “Supremacy l,” and “Supremacy II.”
But somehow we have frozen our CCCW when it comes to celebrating or commemorating December 31 and its June 4 progeny, “he wrote.
The National Democratic Congress( NDC) led by former President Rawlings is set to celebrate the 31st December 1981 coup today. But Prof Azar is of the opinion that it is constitutionally unacceptable to do so.
“So.....the architects of the scars of the revolution will have the effrontery and chutzpah to celebrate and commemorate “the revolution” to ironically discuss threats to national development and genuine democracy.
To the extent that this celebration or commemoration is patronized, if not spearheaded, by a national political party, it must be viewed as a national event and subject to the rule in the December 31 case.
But even private celebrations that pose a danger to democracy and peace as well as violate the principles of the Constitution should not be tolerated.
We have closed our eyes to this rank anomaly for far too long,” he maintained.
The NDC has regularly marked the coups its forbears staged in 1979 and 1981.
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