Mahama travelling without acting head of state a willful disregard for the Constitution — Minority

The Minority Caucus in Parliament has slammed President John Dramani Mahama over what they describe as his administration’s disregard for the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.

Currently, the President is in Togo for a three-day first African Union Debt Conference in Lomé, Togo.

His Vice President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, is also out of the country for medical reasons, while the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, is likewise reported to be abroad.

The NPP lawmakers cited Article 60 of the 1992 Constitution, which requires that the President swear in an acting head of state when he is leaving the jurisdiction and the Vice President and Speaker are unavailable.

In a statement dated May 12, John Darko, Legal Counsel to the Minority Caucus, argued that leaving such a power vacuum reflects how the NDC government continues to treat the Constitution as an inconvenience rather than a binding framework.

“Their conduct is not only unconstitutional; it is deliberate and calculated. This administration has consistently treated the Constitution as an inconvenience rather than a binding framework.

“They are emboldened to flout the supreme law of the land because they believe they have succeeded in weakening the Judiciary. Their continued attacks on the Judiciary and the Chief Justice, both overt and covert, have created a climate that undermines judicial independence and threatens the rule of law,” the statement read in part.

The caucus stressed that the President’s actions, and those of his advisors, constitute “nothing short of a willful and wanton disregard for the Constitution of Ghana. This is one of the clearest demonstrations yet of this administration’s habitual violations of the supreme law of the land.”