Antalya Diplomacy Forum : The Military Has No Business In Staging Coups – Ayorkor Botchwey

Ghana’s minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Intergration , Madam Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey has condemned the military take overs of any country in Africa or anywhere in the world Speaking at Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey, she expressed her dislike for such adventures as unacceptable and reprehensible. The minister urged the military to focus on their core duty of providing security for their respective countries instead of dabbling in partisan politics.

She argued that no matter how obnoxious a regime would be the soldiers must not use any excuse to overthrow any government in Africa. She advised the soldiers to concentrate on their assigned job and allow the electorate to use the ballot boxes to change governments. She made these remarks in a panel discussion at forum where a panel member wanted to find out why soldiers in West Africa often intervene in our governance systems. She opined that the democratic structures in place must be allowed to work even if unfavourable because it’s not the duty of the military to change governments but civilians.

The minister intimated that ECOWAS has decided to use the universal adult sufferage system to govern through their charter and no country will be allowed to breach that protocol. She lamented that West Africa is surrounded by the Sahalean extremists and terrorists who are causing instabilities in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger .

The Honourable minister called for good governance, freedom of the media , participation of civil society organizations , freeing the hands of constitutional bodies and allowing citizens to enjoy their rights.

Again there should be free fair transparent elections in all all the 15 West African countries to avoid chaos. She hinted that ECOWAS is re-drafting some of its charters to forestall some of the uprisings by calling recalcitrant leaders to order . In the case of the Malian situation, she told the the Antalya Diplomacy Forum that ECOWAS foresaw the event because the president changed the Constitution to third term instead of two terms but because of the country’s sovereignty they couldn’t stop him. But they knew trouble was looming as the people became agitated. Same applied to Burkina Faso . Madam Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey maintained that ECOWAS has decided to use only democratic and unimpeded rule of law as the only acceptable system of governance and any member country that flouts it would be dealt with . According to her , it’s only that process that will allow the subregion to tap its potential in terms of economic, commercial , social and democratic orders to make use of the African Free Trade Area that has a big market .

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