Investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni
• Mannaseh believes that Ghanaians are feeling the impact of the decision they made on December 7, 2021
•He is worried by the silence of the GBA on national issues
• He wants the new leaders to revive the association and also find its voice in national discourse
Investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni, said that Ghanaians are experiencing the result of the decisions they made in the 2020 General Elections.
According to Manasseh, Ghanaians were presented with two bad options in the 2020 elections.
He said Ghanaians voted in favour of a certain party are now feeling the impact of that decision made on December 7.
“In December 2020, Ghanaian voters were presented with the option to choose between dying by firing squad or dying through hanging. A choice was made, and we are feeling the debilitating effects of the ever-tightening noose of bad governance and impunity,” an excerpt of a piece posted on Facebook reads.
Manasseh was urging members of the Ghana Bar Association to elect a leader who will resurrect the body that represents legal practitioners in the country.
According to him, the association is gradually losing its voice in national discourse hence the need for the incoming leadership to commit to ensuring that the GBA has a respected voice on national issues.
He criticized the failure of the association to comment on the murder of investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein and other major happenings in the country.
“As an observer, the moribund Ghana Bar Association isn’t different from the Ghana Journalists Association to which I belonged until it lost its way.
“I say the GBA is moribund because Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
“Our wise elders have also taught us that a man does not run after rats when his roof is on fire.
So, when you hear the GBA louder on the policing of boobs of female lawyers than the deterioration of the rule of law, corruption and bad governance, then you don’t need anyone to tell you that this is an association that has outlived its usefulness.
“When the President of the Republic and his team formed themselves into the instigator, investigator and adjudicator in suspending (in the form of a forced leave) and later hounding the Auditor-General out of office, one would have expected the GBA to lead the pack fighting for the reversal of that unfortunate decision.
“When some individuals and civil society groups petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene, the apex court could have dealt with that important constitutional matter in two weeks if it had attached the same seriousness it gave to the 2020 election petition. But after seven months, the petitioners discontinued the case because the delay of the Supreme Court had rendered it moot. And the GBA was mute.
“When an MP and influential member of the governing party put the photograph of an undercover journalist on television, told the world where the journalist lived and ordered whoever saw him to attack him, nothing was done to the MP. Later, the undercover journalist was shot and killed by unknown persons. Again, nothing was done to MP who issued the threats.”