*Minority Leader Warns of “Suffocating” Democracy After Arrests of NPP Members*
Minority Leader Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin has issued a stern warning to government over recent arrests of opposition New Patriotic Party members, saying the crackdown threatens free speech, civil liberties and Ghana’s reputation as a democratic model in Africa.
Making a statement in the House on Tuesday,June 9 2026, Mr Afenyo-Markin framed the issue as bigger than partisan politics. “Ghana was built by men and women who believed that truth must be free to speak, that power must be free to be questioned,” he said.
“What is happening in this country today goes beyond partisan politics. It is a question etched into the conscience of the nation itself.”
The Effutu MP cited Article 21(1)(a) of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression. He argued that recent arrests have created “anxiety” among citizens who now calculate “whether speaking is safe” before criticizing government.
“Anxiety is what a people feel when they begin to wonder whether the rules that protect them still apply,” Afenyo-Markin told MPs. “That is a profound and dangerous shift in the relationship between a government and its citizens.”
While acknowledging that the courts must resolve legal cases and that “no one is above the law,” he cautioned that “the law can be technically applied and fundamentally abused at the same time.”
The Minority Leader said the arrests of “a number of Ghanaian citizens, members of the opposition NPP” matter because erosion of free speech rarely starts with everyone being silenced. “It begins with the silencing of some and the silence of everyone else in response. It begins, Mr. Speaker, in moments precisely like this one,” he warned.
Afenyo-Markin reminded the House that Ghana’s democratic standing has been built over decades through coups, transitions and constitutional tests.
He said international partners and other African nations look to Ghana as “a proof of concept that democracy can take root and flourish on this continent.”
“Governments that stifle dissent do not strengthen themselves but rather hollow out the very institutions upon which their own legitimacy depends,” he added. “A democracy that is healthy enough to tolerate criticism is a democracy strong enough to endure.”
Turning to the Majority, Afenyo-Markin called for consistency regardless of who holds power.
“The standard we apply today to the treatment of the opposition must be the same standard we would demand were the roles reversed.
"The norms we establish in this chamber today will outlast every one of us.”
He concluded by urging Parliament to act as “guarantor of those freedoms.”
The Minority is asking the House to send a clear message: that every Ghanaian’s voice matters and that their rights are sacred.
“Ghana has come too far. We have paid too high a price for the freedoms we enjoy to allow them to be quietly diminished in moments of political convenience,” he said.
Report by PKB
