• Irbard Ibrahim says the youth should be more involved in leadership
• He wants the age for presidential races to be reduced to as low as 25
Security consultant and social commentator, Irbard Ibrahim, is of the view that the age for persons eligible to run for president in Ghana should be reduced to as low as 25 years.
He said that even for the universal suffrage, there are already discussions underway to have it reduced from the existing 18 to 16.
He believes that this would make sense so as to get the youth into positions of power early enough before old age catches up with them.
Irbard Ibrahim was speaking on The Lowdown on GhanaWeb TV when he made these comments.
He interacted with the host, Nii Akwei Ismail Akwei and the following comments are excerpts of his conversation:
Irbard: “Over the past three regimes in Ghana, I think we’ve very important and delicate positions handed over to young people… in some cases, it’s been worse than having a septuagenarian occupy that position. And so for me, I think we should tread on the side of caution.
“And we can’t blame the ageing leaders too much. Why? You can’t run for president until you are 40, and in some cases, some of them have had to struggle for 20 years, or 25 years or 30 years. Nana Addo in our case intended to be president many decades ago and he only got the nod in 2016. So, by the time you’d have achieved your presidential ambition, you’d be old. So, maybe the system has to change.
“Isn’t that a recipe for coup d’états?” the host, Nii Akwei Ismail Akwei asked.
“Yes, it is, and I agree with you so maybe we can bring down the age. If universal suffrage is 18 and currently, we’re even making an advocacy that it should be lowered to 16 because these young people, they’re able to do with digital media what the aged cannot do. There are apps on phones that teenagers in high schools know better than some people in the university.
“So, these baby boomers – people born in the 2000s, should be a part of the political system. So, number one, we are making a proposal that universal suffrage should move from 18 to 16 because more exposure for these people at their age than we had in our time. And then, why do you have to be 40 before you can run for president? We can lower that age as well to maybe 30 or 25 if you’re an achiever.”
The Lowdown shows every Monday on GhanaWeb TV on YouTube.
