Tamale North Member of Parliament, Alhassan Suhuyini, agrees with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that the 1992 Constitution has served Ghanaians well.
Suhuyini says the constitution is not the cause of the problems in the country but rather the character of people who are elected into leadership positions.
For instance, he questioned the decision of the president to appoint over 120 ministers in his first term in office. In his view, it was not the fault of the Constitution that a president would appoint this huge number of ministers.
“The biggest problem we have in this country is the character of the people we put in office,” Alhassan Suhuyini said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, March 2 while contributing to a discussion on the State of the Nation address delivered by President Akufo-Addo on Tuesday, February 27.
President Akufo-Addo had said that despite the flaws and calls for the amendment of portions of the constitution to meet the recent demands of the population, it must be acknowledged that it has provided the country with better advantages and put an end to the previous years of coup d’état.
Delivering SONA, President Akufo-Addo said that considering the previous violence and the state of unrest citizens had to endure before the introduction of democracy, it must be acknowledged that the country is better off than it was 32 years ago.
“Mr Speaker, we in Ghana have had our fair share of political instability and experimentation about how we should govern ourselves. There might be new names being ascribed to some of the supposed new ideas being canvassed by some today, but I daresay, on close examination, we would discover they are not new, we have tried them here, and they have failed. We know about all-powerful, cannot-be-questioned Messiahs, we know about liberators, and we know about redeemers and deities in military uniform.
“It might sound new to some, but those of us who have been around for a while have heard the argument made passionately that democracy was not a suitable form of Government if we wanted rapid development. It is a tired argument that was regularly used by coup d’etat apologists.
“It is also not new to have political parties and politics, in general, being denigrated, indeed, there used to be national campaigns of fear waged against politics and political parties. It took time and it took long battles, but, in the end, a consensus did emerge, and we opted for a multi-party democratic form of Government under the Constitution, which ushered in the Fourth Republic.
“Mr Speaker, it is not a perfect document, Constitutions do not ever pretend to be; but it has served us well these past thirty-two (32) years, considering where we have come from. It is a sacred document that should not be tampered with lightly, but, I hasten to add, our Constitution did not descend from heaven, we, Ghanaians, drew it up to serve our needs, and we can amend it to suit our changing needs and circumstances,” he said.
