PATRIOTIC YOUTH MOVEMENT

PRIVATE MAIL BAG
ACCRA
5 MARCH, 2011
PRESS RELEASE

RE: Review Of The Fourth Republican Is Not For Witch Hunting

The Patriotic Youth Movement wishes to express our profound dissatisfaction to a statement attributed to Prof. Stephen Addai, the former Rector of GIMPA, when an Accra based radio station sorts to know his views on the Constitutional Review Committee currently taken place.
What we found repugnant with his answer to the question on the indemnity clause in the fourth Republican Constitution when he said that the founder of the NDC and former President, Flt Lt. J. J. Rawlings should come and apologise to Ghanaians over the alleged wrongs of the past.
Prof. Addai we are sure was not in Ghana when our former President on several occasions apologised to Ghanaians on the excesses of the 31st December, 1981 revolution.
We further wish to state that the views of our learned Professor sought to defeat the spirit and later of the National Reconciliation Commission set up his protégé and mentor former President J. A. Kuffour to address the concerns of Prof. Stephen Addai.
The intention of the government of the NDC to amend sections of the constitution was to address some of the challenges the 1992 Constitution poses to the governance process. What people like Prof. Addai should understand are that the document was not meant for witch hunting or vengeance and that he/his likes should get it right. The constitution we all know is the property of Ghanaians and not the asset of any particular person.
Prejudice would not help anybody or any groups of people who think that the review of the 1992 Constitution was meant to settle personal scores.
If Prof Addai comments were meant to set the stage for ‘we against them’ then what he must know is that he has failed to divide Ghanaians.
In the view of Patriotic Youth Movement the comments of Prof. Addai were vicious, laced with intended malice, porous, mischievous, divisive, and uninformed. These comments are out of place and should not be entertained anywhere in this peace loving nation of ours.
The Patriotic Youth Movement therefore wishes to condemn the statement made by Prof. Addai and would further like to sound a note of caution to the likes of the Professor to be circumspect when asked to comment on sensitive national issues in the media.
As a devout Christian our last words to Prof. Addai could be found in the New Testament Philippians 4:8
It was for the likes of Prof. Addai whose aim is to hold us to that which divides instead of the things that binds us, that the indemnity clause was inserted in the 1992 constitution by the framers.
Ghana under the leadership of His Excellency, Prof. J. E. A. Mills have opened a new chapter in the manner people in the position of trust and respect should act when it comes to serious national issues and we expect all to take note of this swift wind of change blowing in the country.

CHRISTIAN BADGER