Boakye Gyan says uprising taught Ghanaians lessons

The 1979 revolt gave Ghanaians the will to demand probity and accountability in national governance, Major Kojo Boakye Djan, Spokesman of the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), has said.

In a statement issued to the Ghana News Agency to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the June 4 uprising he said, ”It is a lesson we have bequeathed to this country, and we are proud of it.”

It said laws were broken and enforced and added “ We rose up in 1979 to enforce our laws that had been broken in 1966 and 1972 with impunity. These laws starting from the criminal code of 1960 section 12 have been codified under the 1992 constitution and are, therefore, still in force. We, therefore, committed no wrong in holding to account all those who had broken them.”

It called for an industrial Military complex led development paradigm under the supervision of politicians who would still operate a multi-party system under a consensus rule regime, a system which was advocated for and rejected.

The statement said the trust of the plan was that under the collective leadership of civilian political class preferably, the multi-party type, Ghana was to embark on a sustained development effort and industrial complex programme for the following four years subject to review.

“We believe that today as we did then that Ghana made a wrong turning when our plan was rejected,” the statement said.