President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has vehemently condemned seditious statements to incite people to stage a coup d'état in Ghana, stressing such statements shouldn't be tolerated.
Delivering this year's State of the Nation Address, President Nana Akufo-Addo called for peace and stability in the nation and the African continent.
The President reminded Ghanaians of some consequences of the series of coup d'état that occurred in times past until the Fourth Republic and cautioned them against its reinvention.
"We came through a long and torturous journey to arrive at today's consensus on a multiparty democracy. But the last 29 years of our Fourth Republic has shown that this has been the most productive period since our independence. Both the major political parties of the country, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have made positive contributions to this development."
He was also downhearted over the recent coups in some African countries stating, "the West African Region is suddenly back in the international news headlines for all the wrong reasons. We are back as the Regional political instability and the place for coups. Long and bitter experience led ECOWAS to its current stance of zero intolerance for Military coups. We, in Ghana, know the cost of instability. It leads to the exodus of our artisans and professionals and the emptying of teachers from our schools.''
He therefore charged the nation to uphold democracy.
''It is up to us to find a way to accommodate each other and our differences to make things work for the benefit of the Ghanaian people. Mr. Speaker, it might also be well that coup d'états have re-entered our discourse because of the turmoil in our neigbourhood," he emphasized.
The President advised Ghanaians to disregard any calls for Military takeover or insurgence, exclaiming, "there's work to be done on building our institutions but our democracy is worth fighting for!''
''We should be unapologetic about campaigning for stable democratic governments in our region. We do not want to be an island of peace and stability in a region of turmoil. We do not aspire to be prosperous in the midst of want and poverty. We want a stable and properous Ghana in a stable and prosperous region," President Akufo-Addo further asserted.
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