The Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa, Mr. K.T. Hammond has descended on Prof Raymond Atuguba’s “Ghana’s deteriorating economic circumstances make the country a possible candidate for a coup” comment describing it as “clear foolishness”.
The Dean of the University of Ghana School of Law said at a forum organized by Solidare Ghana said “My current assessment that Ghana may be ripe for a coup partly springs from the knowledge I gained from accompanying my friend through part of his doctoral research on this topic”.
“It does not help matters if we consider Samuel Huntington’s thesis on the snowballing effect of coups in the sub-region and the closeness of recent coups to home.”
He, thus, urged the Minister of National Security, Mr. Albert Kan-Dapaah, to have a conversation with his friend at the War College, who conducted the study to avert same.
Prof Atuguba explained further that a big part of why certain coups succeeded and others fail is the economy.
“What is the state of Ghana’s economy today? At the level of the most irreducible idiomaticity, Ghana is broke; your nation is radically broke – so broke the Speaker of Parliament has publicly warned that we may not be able to pay the salaries of public sector workers in some three months unless a miracle happens,” he stated.
Prof Atuguba added: “The minister of finance has waded in, in very fine and polished English.”
Quoting the finance minister, Prof Atuguba said, he (Mr. Ofori-Atta) said: “The legitimate reality is that there’s no money.”
In his view, at least, the finance minister has confessed to us that “there are some illegitimate realities”.
In reaction to the academician’s comment, Mr. Hammond said: “I will be surprised if they [police] have not already invited him.”
“He is a professor and of no other thing than of law. He understands the Constitution,” the lawmaker condemned.
He wondered why people start glamouring for coups only when the NPP is in power.
“The NPP was not entirely happy about everything that the NDC regime did. Nobody called for a coup.”
“Why is it that in the course of the NPP administration, at every opportunity that they get, the irresponsible ones are calling for the intervention of the military,” Mr. Hammond asked.
Meanwhile Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has noted that the coup comment made by the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana, Prof Atuguba is an attack on Ghana’s democracy.
He said the pronouncements “are disappointing because, despite Covid-19, Ghana’s current economic status is far better than the days of yesteryear when there was no global pandemic.
“Even if they were worse, the constitution provides legitimate means for advocating for and executing a change. For respected persons to be purporting that such conditions legitimise coups is a terrible attack on our democracy itself and should not be condoned.”