Former President John Kufour has urged Ghanaians to cherish the country\u2019s democracy and not rely on only economic indicators as a measure of development.<\/p>\n
As Ghana celebrates 25 years under the fourth republic, Mr. Kufuor downplayed comparisons with more successful countries like Rwanda, which have autocratic regimes.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”RsAyGnprZT1ghHYfzfsTkUzB4qZynMUQ”]He said the rule of law must not be compromised as Ghana strives for development, regardless of the slow pace.<\/p>\n
“We believe we can have democracy with development. That is what I believe is evolving in Ghana and we should sustain it and respect it,” the former President said to the media at a ceremony to outdoor him as the patron of the Ghana Jobs Bank Initiative.<\/p>\n
He stressed that democracy must ultimately reflect positively in the lives of the masses.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople talk of the democratic Dividend. I believe the dividend should translate into wellbeing, employment, good earnings not just for the state but for all citizens. Everybody should feel the count as citizens of this land.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, people who suggest that a dictatorship or autocratic regime would be best for Ghana\u2019s development take their freedoms for granted, Mr. Kufuor suggested in response to a question on the matter.<\/p>\n
“Anybody who will talk like that is exposing himself or herself as not really befitting of the title of a citizen. Democracy working on the basis of rule of law should function with citizen\u2019s rights acknowledged\u00a0and fundamental human rights respected\u2026 Yes, there may be a little too much noise but the laws are there to ensure that when you talk out of turn, you may be disciplined under the law,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
Freedoms can’t be sacrificed for progress<\/strong><\/p>\n Regardless of the development in autocratic states, Mr. Kufuor said basic rights and freedoms of citizens\u00a0could not be sacrificed for quick development.<\/p>\n “Will you sacrifice your right of expression to just be fed like a captive animal? Do you want to be put in a golden cage? As we sit here, as human beings, just because you are in a golden cage and every morning you are fed with something and you are denied the right to express yourself; what you think and what you want to say, is that what you want? So the comparison shouldn\u2019t happen,” he stated.<\/p>\n “We have suffered our bit of ups and downs. We are coming out from the woods and we should sustain this move and put ourselves on a trajectory that will give us both the economic benefits as well as the benefit of human rights. Everything should be defined on the basis of human rights.”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former President John Kufour has urged Ghanaians to cherish the country\u2019s democracy and not rely on only economic indicators as a measure of development. As Ghana celebrates 25 years under the fourth republic, Mr. Kufuor downplayed comparisons with more successful countries like Rwanda, which have autocratic regimes. [contextly_sidebar id=”RsAyGnprZT1ghHYfzfsTkUzB4qZynMUQ”]He said the rule of law must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":390158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11],"tags":[13232,3,2794],"class_list":["post-390153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-top-stories","tag-democracy","tag-ghana-news","tag-kufuor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=390153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/390158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=390153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=390153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=390153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}