By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A high court in Ghana has barred a plan by some civil society groups to embark on a street demonstration against the escalating cost-of-living in the West African nation.
Ghana joins the growing list of African countries taking to the street to vent their grievances against the government over what they term bad governance.
Heritage Times HT reports that in the neighbouring Nigeria, groups have been mobilizing support for an anti-government protest tagged, #EndBadGovernance which seeks to draw the attention of government on the growing poverty in the country, high cost of goods and services and soaring prices of staple foods.
This has been exacerbated by the dual problems of fuel subsidy removal and unification of forex window.
One of the groups backing the ten-day protest slated to commence Aug. 1 across the 36 states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja is Take It Back.
Organisers of the now canceled demonstrations in Ghana said it would draw over two million people onto the streets to demand more action from President Nana Akufo-Addo on corruption and living conditions, as well as to protest delays in signing an anti-LGBT bill into law.
High court Justice Abena Afia Serwaa approved a request by Ghana’s police to ban a handful of organisations from carrying out protests planned between July 31 and August 6 after the police said it lacked the personnel necessary to provide security as officers have been deployed to political rallies amid election campaigning for elections.
Kenya was one of the earliest countries to be hit by the wave of protest, where over 50 people were killed and nearly 700 arrested in a police crackdown on demonstrations since mid-June.
Young persons began taking to the streets to oppose tax increases proposed by President William Ruto. It later snowballed, leading to the sack of cabinet members by Ruto to reduce governance cost.
Last week, young people in Uganda took to the streets to protest against alleged corruption and demand the resignation of the parliament speaker.
Police there shut down a march and arrested more than 70 people, according to a legal aid organisation.
