Former President John Mahama has stated that an Electoral Commission (EC) owes it a sacred duty of care to the citizenry by ensuring they are included in electoral processes and not excluded in the interest of the incumbent administration.
He also asked the media to hold governments accountable and not allow them to take citizens for granted because they voted them into power.
“An EC owes it a sacred duty of care to the people by ensuring they are included in the electoral processes and not exclude them in the interest of the incumbent administration and an independent media owes it to the people to not only report facts without bias but to hold successive governments accountable,” former President Mahama postulated.
According to him, the Judiciary also owed it a duty to deliver impartial justice to citizens, an ombudsman owed it a duty of care, an ombudsman owed it a duty of care to the people to investigate all issues of malfeasance, the police force should exist to serve the people and not rein terror on them.
Former President Mahama indicated that the Judiciary had been badly damaged because people no longer felt they could get justice and the Judiciary should undergo self-cleansing.
“Recently, so badly has the image of our judiciary deteriorated and many of our citizens openly make mockery of our justice system and of our justices instead of hope that they will truly get justice if they went to the court which is an unfortunate but serious development.
“One of the scariest existential threats to any democracy is when the citizenry think their judiciary holds no value for them which is a security threat that the national security apparatus drew the attention of the nation to recently but was poorly received which is scary because it threatens unity, peace and stability of our democracy.
“We must quickly correct the fast spreading notion, we will get to a state where people will have no qualms about taking the law into their own hands because they do not have trust and confidence they can get any justice in the system,” former President Mahama decried.