By Paul Mamattah
As part of strategies to ascertain the knowledge of the public on the Constitution, the Ada West District office of the National Commission for Civic Education, NCCE, has stepped up public education on the 1992 Constitution to mark the 2023 Constitution Week Celebration.
The Constitution Week Celebration is one of the flagship programmes of the Commission and was instituted in 2001 to commemorate the country’s return to constitutional democratic rule. Significantly, April 28, 1992, was the day the Ghanaian electorate voted favorably in a referendum that adopted the draft Fourth Republican Constitution, which came into full force on 7th January 1993. Since 2001, the 28th of April to the 4th of May has been observed as the Annual Constitution Week.
The office marked this year’s Constitution Week Celebration with engagements with identifiable groups in the District was on the theme; “Thirty Years of Consolidating Constitutional Democracy: Building National Cohesion through Civic Education and Participation in Local Governance”. The office targeted Twenty (20) programmes and was able to undertake all Twenty (20) programmes.
Speaking in an interview with the Herald Newspaper to climax the Constitution Week celebration in Sege, the Ada West District Director of the NCCE, Samuel Etsey, explained that NCCE seeks to use the occasion to create an increased and sustained interest and participation of all Ghanaians in the democratic dispensation for the achievement of good governance, social and political stability for national unity and development.
More Read
He added that this year marks 30 years of NCCE, therefore, we recount our contributions to the development of democratic culture in Ghana. Civic education, spearheaded by the NCCE has contributed immensely to the consolidation of democratic governance.
Mr. Etsey pointed out that it is against this background that staff of the office of the Ada West office of the Commission engaged identifiable groups such as market women, artisans, professional groups, churches, and mosques to educate them on the Constitution.
Commenting on the theme; “Thirty Years of Consolidating Constitutional Democracy: Building National Cohesion through Civic Education and Participation in Local Governance, he explained that Civic engagements platforms such as the Inter-Party Dialogue Committee meetings, Presidential and Parliamentary Candidates’ debates, and other forms of voter education such as Political Party Youth Activists’ platforms and special engagements with marginalized groups have contributed to the entrenchment of democratic culture and the successful conduct of eight general elections, three resulting into peaceful transfers of power to opposition political parties, a rare occurrence in the African continent.
Mr. Etsey emphasized the need for all Ghanaians irrespective of their ethnic, religious, and educational background to live as one people with a common destiny charging the people to take an interest in the nation building, cohesion, peaceful coexistence, and also pay attention to Ghanaian core values and principles in our democratic development.
