Delivering a speech at a side event organized by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, in Munich, Germany, on Friday, February 17, 2024, he said that “There are people who still like authoritarian personal rule, because they claim that Africa is underdeveloped and democracy is complicated, and we need to solve it quickly.”
Quoting from the 2019 Annual Coup Risk Report, he pointed out that Africa has experienced more coups than any other continent, which, he said, “poor statistics”.
Identifying the case of Ghana, President Akufo-Addo noted that political instability characterized many of the early decades of the nation’s life as an independent nation, and that Ghana became famous for exemplifying every kind of political experiment.
“The one-party state of the First Republic was overthrown in our first military coup, and the Second and Third Republics, which practiced democratic governance, were also overthrown by coups. My father, the President of the 2nd Republic, was overthrown about 51 years ago, on January 13, 1972. Kutu Acheampong’s coup terminate his position,” said.
However, he noted that in the past 30 years of our 4th Republic, Ghana has enjoyed political stability under a multi-party constitution, and the longest and most stable period of constitutional governance in our history so far.