Former President John Dramani Mahama has called for broader consultations and consensus building to resolve the challenges confronting the country.

According to him, the country’s economy and democracy were in dire straits.

“Economic hardship, insecurity, political and ethnic polarisation, deepening inequality, politicisation of our democratic institutions, corruption, serious problems in the education and health sectors are challenges Ghanaians are confronted with in our daily lives,” he said in a statement issued to commemorate the June 4 Uprising.

Mr Mahama said the situation had led to a crisis of confidence in the political leadership.

Consultations

He said the country was endowed with exceptional human talent and gave an assurance that things could be made “right if we work as one nation with a common destiny.

“As I have said in the past, broad consultations and consensus building does not take anything away from a leader,” he stated.

He said broad consultations that brought the best and brightest together with stakeholders could forge consensus around issues such as economic recovery strategy, or implementational challenges of Free SHS in the national interest.

June 4 values

“The values June 4 espoused some four decades ago remain as relevant today as ever before in our nation’s democratic journey. June 4 engendered hope in our people that the ills of our society would be rooted out and replaced with values of virtue and honesty,” he said.

Mr Mahama urged Ghanaians to embrace and be “guided by truth, transparency, probity and accountability – principles that have been bequeathed unto us, which are the bedrock upon which our nation, undoubtedly, will become great, strong, resilient and prosperous”.

He said the political leadership must also encourage freedom of thought and expression rather than a culture of hypocrisy and silence.