The Managing Partner of the law firm, Bentsil-Enchil, Letsa and Ankomah, Mr Ace Anan Ankomah, has told participants at the 70th Annual New Year School (ANYS) that sovereignty resides in them.
That, therefore, made the President of the country their chief servant and ministers, mere servants.
“So if a person is a president that person is just your chief servant. It is not for any reason that those who work in power are called ministers; ministers are servants, they are not servants of the president, but servants of you and I, the people of Ghana in whom sovereignty resides,” he said.
Mr Ankomah said this in his discussion of the topic: “Civic education — Building a stronger civil society for effective accountability,” during a panel meeting at the 70 ANYS last Wednesday.
He said the solemn commitment to the principles of democracy, openness and rule by the people and not royals, as captured in the preamble of the 1992 Constitution, ensured that all powers of the government sprung from the sovereign will of the people.
“England might have a sovereign Parliament, we do not have a sovereign Parliament. You and I, are the repository of sovereignty in Ghana,” he stated passionately, with clenched fist.
Rights and responsibilities
Mr Ankomah said ample rights and opportunities had been given by the Constitution for citizens to be responsible for their governance and welfare.
That extended to social movements being formed by citizens to cause change or resist change.
He said that right of sovereignty reposed in the people, went hand in hand with duties or responsibilities.
“Your right is always together with your duty and key duty that the constitution imposes on you in addition to the right is to protest and preserve public property, expose and combat misuse and waste of public funds and property,“ he told participants.
“Our right are inseparable from the performance of duties,” he stated.
He said the duty of exposing and combatting misuse of public property was the basis of the formation of social movements.
“So social movements should be an essential part of our drive to consolidate democracy,” Mr Ankomah said.
“It will be a shame if all we did to further democracy, was to vote every four years to punish whoever is in power who has attracted our ire and anger,” he added. Rather, he said: “we should be interested in what a government is doing while he, she or it is in power!...” he stressed.
He said if citizens did not hold the feet of politicians to the fire, they would do as they pleased knowing that they had a cycle of four or eight years to enjoy a lifestyle that they could only have dreamt of.
He said the duopoly of the country’s politics, with no third force, meant that social movements were going to be that third force to ensure change.
“Until a viable third force party arises, social movements would be the viable third force party in the country,” he stated.
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