Kume preko reloaded: Is Martin Kpebu asking for a coup? - Anyidoho asks

Koku Anyidoho, a one-time presidential spokesperson has reacted to the 'Kume preko' reloaded protest that took place over the weekend.

The protest which saw hundreds of Ghanaians clad in red and black and holding placards critical of the government was called by a private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu.

The lawyer decried the spate of economic mismanagement as a core plank for his call for the president and his vice to resign and hand over power to the Speaker of Parliament.

It is that demand that Anyidoho built his views around in a tweet dated November 6, 2022.

It read: "When a lawyer goes on demonstration to ask that the President and Vice President should resign; is he asking for a coup?"

Kpebu speaks at protest

Kpebu led hundreds of demonstrators who marched through the capital on Saturday demanding the immediate resignation of President Akufo-Addo over Ghana’s current economic woes.

Addressing protesters during the march, he said: “We are dying; citizens are dying; citizens can’t afford food; citizens are starving all because of misgovernance by President Akufo-Addo.

"It never happened that you have a president in office and every time that the country borrows, the president’s family becomes richer; how? This can’t continue.

"We can’t borrow all the time and have Databank becoming richer all the time. Citizens have a duty as stated in Article 41 [of the Constitution] to ask the president to resign and this is not the first time that a president of Ghana is going to resign,” Martin Kpebu said.

What Akufo-Addo said about Ghana being in a crisis

Amid an economic downturn, calls for Akufo-Addo to resign has heightened with a November 5, 2022 protest dubbed ‘Kume Preko Reloaded’ making the loudest call as activists and politicians marched in Accra to press home that demand.

The government is meanwhile, grappling with an economic crisis, which along with the galamsey scourge and corruption are the major drivers for the call on Akufo-Addo to resign along with his Vice President, Mahamadu Bawumia.

Akufo-Addo in his October 30 address on the economy blamed the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war as causes for the country’s economic woes.

While admitting that the country was in crisis and rallying support for various government interventions to stem the tide, he said the situation was not peculiar to the country as many nations across the world were also experiencing difficulties.

“We are in a crisis, I do not exaggerate when I say so. I cannot find an example in history when so many malevolent forces have come together at the same time.

“But, as we have shown in other circumstances, we shall turn this crisis into an opportunity to resolve not just the short-term, urgent problems, but the long-term structural problems that have bedevilled our economy,” he said.

But like before, President Akufo-Addo blamed the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war as causative factors for the economic woes.

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When a lawyer goes on demonstration to ask that the President and Vice President should resign; is he asking for a coup?