Professor of Political Science at the University of Ghana Ransford Edward Yaw Gyampo has lauded the action of members of Democracy Hub for staging their three-day demonstration in Accra.
From Thursday, September 21 to Saturday, September 23, the group gathered to protest some of the ills of this government.
According to them, unemployment and taxes, among others, have gone sharply high under the current administration.
Despite a first day of chaos when all of them were arrested, the protesters returned to successfully embark on their procession on Friday and Saturday despite being stopped from getting closer to the Jubilee House, the seat of government. The original plan was to picket there for three days in what they called #OccupyJulorbiHouse.
Commenting on the outcome of the protest on The Keypoints on TV3/3FM on Saturday, September 23, Prof Gyampo commended the protesters for sustaining the momentum to give authorities the needed pressure.
“I am commending the demonstrators,” he said. “I commend them because we were becoming a docile population and if politicians know that as for these people they are polarised on partisan grounds and they will always find a way to defend even if what is bad [and] this has gotten into the psyche of many politicians and so they perpetuate bad governance on us.”
Day 2 saw the protesters defy the rains to register their protest.
Lawyer Martin Kpebu, who joined the fray, confessed they were beaten by the rains and he had to leave after two hours.
“For them to defy such heavy rains and to sustain the momentum of the demonstration should communicate in a certain language to the powers that be,” Prof Gyampo lauded.
He, however, descended heavily on those who raised suspicion that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) may be behind these protests.
He described such mentality as “incompetent”.
“Any attempt to describe any form of dissent as orchestrated by the NDC is an incompetent analysis of a situation.”