Fellow Ghanaians: This is a democracy, not a police state

Fellow Ghanaians,

Last week, as we mourned, many of us woke up to the troubling news that a social media activist affiliated with the opposition New Patriotic Party, known popularly as Sir Obama Pokuase, had been arrested by the Ghana Police Service.

His so-called crime? Sharing videos that allegedly showed rogue elements wielding guns and other weapons and demanding investigations.

The police later released a statement claiming that he had been picked up to assist them with investigations. But let us be honest with ourselves, Fellow Ghanaians, if the police genuinely wanted his assistance in clarifying or explaining videos circulating online, would the appropriate and reasonable course of action not have been to extend him a formal invitation?

Would they not have simply called his lawyers, written to him, and allowed him to come in freely? Instead, he was arrested, handcuffed, and dragged away as if he were a hardened criminal.

We are told constantly that Ghana is a democracy; that our citizens are free, that our Constitution guarantees liberties and rights that cannot be arbitrarily curtailed, and yet, here we are again, watching as a man who was accused of nothing more than posting videos is treated like an armed robber.

To make matters worse, although he was granted bail, and although his lawyers insist that every condition of that bail was satisfied, he remained in custody through the weekend. And in Ghana, we all know what it means when somebody is held over a weekend. It means unnecessary punishment.

It means psychological intimidation. It means state institutions weaponizing their powers to teach citizens a lesson.

This is not how a democracy behaves. This is not how a government that claims to respect human rights operates. This is the conduct of a state that is more comfortable with the tactics of autocracy than with the discipline of freedom.

Fellow Ghanaians, nearly seventy years after independence, it is profoundly depressing that we are still having this conversation.

And here is the point that must be made bluntly: if President John Mahama does not stand up, speak out, and rein in these excesses by the police and by the national security apparatus, then these very same excesses will be the undoing of his young administration, which at this moment enjoys massive goodwill from the people.

That goodwill is not infinite. It is not unconditional. It is built on the expectation that this administration will do things differently, that it will not repeat the sins of the past, that it will honour the promises of freedom, of fairness, of respect for ordinary citizens. .

Every unnecessary arrest, every weekend detention, every abuse of power chips away at that goodwill. And if nothing is done, the same people who today are hopeful will tomorrow become disillusioned.

Fellow Ghanaians, we have been here before. We saw, under the last administration, shameful arrests of journalists under the archaic and frankly embarrassing “publication of false news” law. We saw activists detained for weeks simply because they dared to protest against the scourge of galamsey, that cancer eating away at our land and our future.

We remember how the popular activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor was arrested, detained for weeks together with his colleague potestors, and before that in another incident slapped with outrageous trumped-up treason charges and kept in custody for a month.

We have lived through governments that treat dissent as crime, that use security agencies as tools of fear rather than protectors of liberty. And we thought, or at least we hoped, that with this new government, with this fresh start, those days were behind us. Yet what are we seeing? The same tired script, the same abuse of power, the same contempt for the rights of citizens.

But Fellow Ghanaians, this pattern did not begin yesterday. It is a long shadow from our past. Under colonial rule, the infamous Preventive Detention Acts were used to silence nationalist leaders, detain them without trial, and frighten an entire population into obedience.

We swore that once independence came, such indignities would never be visited on free Ghanaians again. Yet what followed in the decades after independence, under military juntas and under fragile civilian governments, was more of the same.

Journalists were dragged from their newsrooms, opposition figures were detained without trial, citizens were tortured in secret cells. Entire generations grew up fearing the midnight knock of soldiers or police. We said never again, but here we are, in 2025, still seeing echoes of those dark years in the way our police casually abuse their powers.

The Ghana Police Service is not a political militia. It is not an instrument for punishing dissenters. It is not there to frighten activists into silence. It is a public institution paid for by the taxes of Ghanaians, meant to uphold law and order while protecting the freedoms of the people.

Yet too often, it behaves like an unaccountable force answerable only to itself or to whatever government happens to be in power. That culture must end. That impunity must end. And it can only end if those at the top — the President, the Interior Minister, the leadership of Parliament — make it clear that they will not tolerate abuses in the name of “security.”

Fellow Ghanaians, when a citizen cannot express himself online without fear of a police knock on the door, when a citizen can be picked up and held without charge through a weekend, when bail means nothing because the police can simply choose not to release you, then we are not living in a free society.

We are living in a state where freedom exists only on paper, where the Constitution is a decoration, where power tramples over rights with impunity.

Let us be clear: if a citizen breaks the law, if a citizen incites violence, if a citizen threatens national security, then by all means let the law take its course. But that law must be transparent, it must be accountable, it must respect process, and it must not be abused to harass people simply for expressing themselves.

The detention of Sir Obama Pokuase was not about protecting the republic, it is about flexing muscle. And in a democracy, muscle-flexing by the state is always dangerous.

This is not a partisan issue. Today it is an NPP activist. Tomorrow it could be an NDC activist. The next day it could be a journalist, a lawyer, a teacher, or a student. Freedom is indivisible.

You cannot say you cherish it and then turn a blind eye when it is violated because the victim belongs to the other side. If we allow this culture to persist, then one day none of us will be safe.

Fellow Ghanaians, we are nearly seventy years old as a nation, and yet we behave in ways that suggest we have not matured at all in the practice of democracy. For how long will we continue to tolerate police officers acting as if their mandate is to silence rather than to serve?

For how long will we permit security agencies to intimidate citizens instead of protecting them? For how long will we watch as our basic rights are trampled under the excuse of “national security”?

It is time for this unconstitutional conduct to end. It is time for citizens to truly enjoy their freedoms and liberties not as subjects of a state but as sovereigns in a republic. Our Constitution is clear: sovereignty resides in the people.

The police, the military, the intelligence services — they are servants, not masters. They have no authority to strip citizens of their dignity simply because they can.

President Mahama must understand that he cannot look away. He cannot shrug and officials within this government cannot be allowed to say, “the police are doing their job.” The government cannot pretend this is a minor matter.

The history of this country is filled with examples of governments that began with goodwill, with hope, with popularity, and then squandered it through arrogance, through repression, through the abuse of power.

If the President allows this culture of intimidation to fester, then he will find, sooner than he thinks, that the very people who placed him in office will turn their backs on him.

Fellow Ghanaians, democracy is not sustained by speeches. It is sustained by how institutions treat ordinary citizens. It is sustained by whether a young man can post online without fear of arrest. It is sustained by whether an activist can march against galamsey without being dragged into a cell.

It is sustained by whether journalists can publish without being accused of “false news.” Every violation, every abuse, every unnecessary detention is a crack in the foundation. And if too many cracks appear, the foundation will collapse.

The message must be clear. The President must call his security chiefs to order. The police must stop using arrest as intimidation. Bail must mean bail. Freedom must mean freedom. And citizens must never again be made to feel like subjects in their own land.

Fellow Ghanaians, if we truly want to be called a democracy, if we truly want to be respected among nations, then we must act like one. The time has come to put an end to these old habits of repression, these shameful practices that belong in the dustbin of history, not in a modern republic.

Our ancestors did not fight for independence so that their children would be handcuffed for posting videos. They did not struggle so that seventy years later we would still be cowering before unaccountable power. They fought so that we could live as free men and women.

Let us honour that fight. Let us honour our Constitution. And let us demand that never again will a citizen be treated as a criminal for simply exercising his freedom.

Fellow Ghanaians, Democracy means freedom, not abuse. The unconstitutional arrest & detention of Sir Obama Pokuase shames our Republic. Bail conditions met, yet he languished in custody. @JDMahama must act—goodwill isn’t endless.

My take on #FellowGhanaians today! pic.twitter.com/bnJqQAaQud

— Kwaku Asante (@kwakuasanteb) August 18, 2025

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