Brigadier Joseph Nunoo-Mensah, a former Chief of Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces, has counselled the current government to learn from the mistakes of its neighbours to prevent a citizen uprising.
He claimed that because neighbouring nations did not recognize the suffering of their people, recent coups d’états had occurred.
Speaking on JoyNews’ Upfront on February 28, he expressed concern about the leaders’ apparent lack of attention to the economic hardships that the people of the country face.
“Let’s examine the countries in the ECOWAS sub-region that have recently experienced coups d’état, and let’s examine ourselves. We must be sincere with ourselves.
Ghana is currently dealing with extremely serious social and economic issues, but our governments are acting as though nothing is wrong.
“When you look at the average people in this country, they are dealing with difficult circumstances, but we don’t even want to acknowledge that these are difficult times,” he said to host Raymond Acquah.
He went on to say that he was disappointed that the President had not brought up these economic concerns during his final State of the Nation speech on Tuesday.
“When our president, my good friend, spoke, I was hoping for solutions to the issues we are having, particularly with food. Local food is not affordable to purchase. There is an issue if I am unable to afford basic foods like yam, cassava, or gari at my income level.
“We are going to have a massive food crisis that might lead to all kinds of problems when we don’t want to accept that it is going to get pretty rough if we don’t take care,” he continued. “The problem is going to get even harder.”
Even though he might not be the smartest person alive, the former chief of staff expressed his hope that leaders would at least bring senior citizens to the table to discuss relevant economic situations and come up with long-term solutions.
“I don’t have a lot of time left to live at the age of 80, almost 88. The Ghana I am leaving behind doesn’t appeal to me. We’re searching for solutions to our socio-economic and political issues.
“We must come up with a solution. The NDC and NPP thing isn’t working, and people need to be honest about it, he continued.
