Kofi Okyere-Darko (KOD), a creative arts spokesperson for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has issued a strong caution to the youth, advising them not to view coups or revolutions as solutions to their concerns about governance, accountability, or the economy.
In an interview on Class 91.3 FM’s Class Morning Show with Prince Benjamin (PB), KOD expressed concerns that young people today often speak about coups without fully understanding the harsh realities, having only read about them.
“These young people have only read stories and not experienced it [coups]. They speak based on what they read [about] how things were done back in the day,” he bemoaned. “It wasn’t easy.”
Reflecting on a personal experience, KOD recounted a moment from his childhood when his mother, while preparing food for a prison church event, confronted soldiers attempting to take the food.
“four or five years old when the prison’s church was being out-doored”.
One of the soldiers, in response, struck her with a rifle and fired at her.
“My mother, working together with some ladies, was baking bread and cooking kenkey for the inauguration. Some soldiers showed up from nowhere in a Pinzgauer a very popular truck from back in the day the military used they wanted to take the food away. And my mother was a no-nonsense woman; there was no way she was going to allow that to happen. Her reasoning was: ‘The food was meant for a purpose, if you want food, maybe I could give you some to eat but if you want to take everything away, no, that won’t happen’,” KOD narrated.
Although his mother survived with injuries, the incident left a lasting impact on KOD, who was a young child at the time.
“This particular young soldier used the butt of his AK-47 to hit my mom’s forehead – I was standing right there as a child of about five years – and shot at her, also.”
“Luckily, she didn’t die,” he added, noting his mother was injured from the knock of the gun but the shooting did not pierce her flesh.
KOD explained that such incidents were a result of the chaotic atmosphere during the revolution, where individuals within the military took advantage of the situation.
“was not sanctioned by anyone but because of the temperature of the movement, because of the times we lived in, there were elements within the military who took an advantage and gave the government itself a bad name”.
“There were certain things that happened that then Chairman [Jerry John] Rawlings was personally not responsible for,” the NDC spokesperson doubled down. “People just took advantage of the situation.”
A revolution, KOD strongly warned, “will take us back”.
He emphasized that many of these actions were not directly sanctioned by the government or the then-chairman Jerry John Rawlings but were instead driven by opportunistic elements.
The fashion entrepreneur, who also founded the brand Nineteen57, argued that democratic governance prevents such abuses of power.
He encouraged the youth to channel their frustrations through peaceful means such as social media, protests, and voting, rather than resorting to violence or revolutions.
“They have to be very intentional in registering and going to the polls. Your thumb speaks for you. We live in an era [where] we have social media and it’s very powerful,” he said.
“See what happened in Kenya some months ago, which was replicated in Nigeria, I believe to a certain extent. It was young people. It wasn’t the elderly who decided to get on the streets. It was young people who thought they were getting frustrated and they wanted to be heard and a lot of changes were made.”
KOD said he “really respected how the Kenyan government handled that – quite a number of African leaders won’t do that”.
KOD praised recent movements led by young people in Kenya and Nigeria, where protests brought about significant change, and urged Ghanaian youth to engage in the political process ahead of the upcoming elections.
He emphasized the importance of using one’s vote wisely and considering how political choices align with personal and national progress.