President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
Host of Tonton sansan on TV XYZ, Prince Kwame Minkah has decried the failure of the Akufo-Addo-led government to address the country’s numerous challenges, saying the first president of Ghana Dr Kwame Nkrumah did not govern the country “anyhow”.
Chastising the government, the vociferous broadcaster said the cost of living had risen faster than usual in the past 4 months, putting pressure on the ordinary Ghanaian.
Kwame Minkah, as he is affectionately known, indicated that Dr Kwame Nkrumah was a selfless leader whose tenure saw monumental infrastructure expansion which has been useful to citizens after some 60 years.
he believes the Akufo-Addo government has not lived up to expectations mainly because of the failure to satisfy the needs of the people almost five years after assuming office.
Tackling the issues that the country is battling on his programme, he lamented youth unemployment, the failing health and education sectors, and the lack of good roads to connect urban areas to the cities of the country.
“People are suffering but it looks like our leaders do not think about the very people that voted them to the power. Our children have no future because the leaders don’t focus on setting a path for them to have a comfortable life in the country,” he said.
Descending on President Akufo-Addo for the fuel and tax hikes Minkah quizzed, “If Dr Kwame Nkrumah had managed the country the way you are doing, would you have met the country in a good path to be able to dream of occupying the seat of the president?”
Kwame Minkah was reacting to thousands of youth that have poured onto the streets of Accra to get the government to respond to the demands of the youth, including clamping down on illegal mining, corruption and tackle unemployment and fuel prices.
The August 4 date was arrived at after an Accra High Court dismissed an application by the police seeking to injunct the protest, using COVID-19 restrictions as an excuse.
The youth are expressing their displeasure at the government on the streets after weeks of frustrations from the police to stop them from hitting the streets.
The campaign started as an online protest about broken systems within the Ghanaian economy and gained grounds in national and international discourse. Many young people jumped on the hashtags, demanding better governance from the Akufo-Addo-led administration.
The conveners of the protests have cited issues such as bad infrastructure, healthcare gaps, high standards of living, and high youth unemployment as some key concerns they demand addressed by the government within the shortest time possible.
Although the campaign has enjoyed remarkable success on social media, attempts to hold a physical protest and to present a formal petition to the government hit the rocks, as the planned protest was prohibited by lawsuits that stalled the protest from seeing the light of day.
Today, they will petition the president after the long protest which has attracted a huge crowd .