Kwesi Pratt Jnr says amending the 1992 Constitution alone will not fix Ghana's crises

Pinned summary · as of 16:27

Veteran journalist Kwesi Pratt Jnr, Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, has told an audience at the University of Cape Coast that rewriting the 1992 Constitution will achieve little unless political leaders and state institutions change how they behave. The occasion was the opening talk of this year's Nkrumah memorial series, held on Thursday, 17 September 2026.

What we know

• Mr Pratt opened this year's Nkrumah lecture programme, the 15th in the series, on 17 September 2026 in Cape Coast, at the University of Cape Coast.
• The address was themed around Nkrumah's past, present and future, looking at how constitutionalism, development and Pan-Africanism connect to his legacy.
• Mr Pratt argued that Ghana's recurring constitutional troubles cannot be settled by amending the 1992 Constitution alone, and that how political leaders and state institutions behave lies at the heart of the problem.
• He accepted that parts of the constitutional text are flawed and need correcting, but said that fixing them would not by itself shield citizens from abuse of power or exploitation by powerful interests.
• He said no constitution enforces itself, and that its results depend on how leaders and institutions operate it.
• Mr Pratt warned that repeated calls for constitutional review can pull attention away from the conduct of public officials.
• Turning to Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Mr Pratt said the first President regarded constitutional change as one tool in a wider fight for self-government and independence, and objected to arrangements that kept colonial control in place.
• Mr Pratt spoke about the Preventive Detention Act of 1958, which allowed detention without trial. He said the Nkrumah government's reasons, including bomb attacks, assassination attempts and violent plots, should be weighed, and that any government using such powers must answer for the human cost.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  Mr Pratt accused successive governments of the Fourth Republic of overreach, wasting national resources and ignoring citizens' rights, and said Parliament has too often failed to check the executive. These are his own accusations, reported by The Vaultz News and Ghana Business News, and were not answered in the reports.
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  According to Ghana Business News, Mr Pratt said self-interested political actors and state institutions have long worked together to apply the Constitution in a self-serving way. That is his view alone and has not been backed by other reports.
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  The Vaultz News and Ghana Business News reported that Mr Pratt said the Supreme Court has not consistently treated constitutional law as a way for ordinary people to challenge those in power; the claim comes only from him.
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  The Vaultz News reported that Mr Pratt portrayed the Positive Action campaign as a disciplined, peaceful form of resistance and outlined the aims of the Seven-Year Development Plan. It also said he conceded that the Nkrumah era saw dropping cocoa prices, growing foreign debt, inflation and shortages, yet rejected the view that Nkrumah ruined the economy. No other report carried these points.
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  Kumasi Mail reported that this lecture opened a two-day look at Nkrumah's legacy, with a second lecture on economic independence and industrialisation; that schedule has not been confirmed elsewhere.

Why it matters for Ghana

Ghana's constitutional review process is already a source of friction among political actors and civil society. Mr Pratt's argument shifts the question from rewriting clauses to how ministers, MPs, judges and public institutions behave in office. That matters for ordinary citizens, especially poorer ones, who depend on those institutions to enforce rights in practice.