The laws don’t function against the ‘mighty’ – Benjamin Boakye

Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Benjamin Boakye, says the laws of Ghana do not function against the ‘mighty’ in society. This affords them many leeways to evade the law.

He was speaking in respect of the Police’s selective enforcement of President Akufo-Addo’s Executive Order on public gathering amidst the coronavirus pandemic on JoyNews’ Newsfile Saturday, June 26.

According to him, the manner in which those in authority blatantly breach laws they impose on the entire populace, “comes at a cost to all of us and to the state.”

“So I think morally, beyond the law, all of us; leaders, citizens, have to take that responsibility to ensure that we don’t unnecessarily endanger our people. And perhaps that is what is missing, because you can get away with the law when you’re a leader. The laws don’t function against the mighty in our context and that makes it easy for them to evade the law,” he said.

He further stated that, “we need to keep asking and pushing them [leaders]” to revive their duty for care.

“I think those who perhaps may be advising the President at this point, he needs somebody who loves him to go to him and say to him that when history is recalled, the people who mobilise for him to do the greetings, the people who encourage him to participate in the violation of the law, their names will not be mentioned.

“This is his tenure, his time, that will be counted and I think once that conversation is had, I’m sure he’ll start processing that. In this information age you can’t easily get away with these kinds of violations when history is recalled,” he concluded.