The #FixTheCountry Movement is a non-partisan and non-political civic movement founded on Twitter (X) by Ghanaian youth to oppose the country’s dire economic hardship and to demand a new Ghanaian society that enhances justice. The movement began in 2021 and is still ongoing.
Problems and Purpose
Social movements enable citizens or a group of people to organise in a collective action to articulate their interests, voice their grievances, resist social, economic or political challenges and demand change to identified problems. At a time when representative democracy is facing legitimacy crises, such citizen-led innovations improve participation, inclusiveness and representation due to their emancipatory potential [1] to pressure governments to adopt policies that improve citizens’ lives.
The #FixTheCountry Movement emerged online in May 2021 with the following objectives:
- To mobilise youth activism against the economic hardship and poor social conditions perpetuated by successive governments.
- To amplify citizens’ voices (especially the marginalised) to pressure government to improve their lives.
- To demand a new Constitution that enhances social justice for a better Ghanaian Society
Using the hashtag #FixTheCountry, scores of Ghanaian youth consistently tweeted against poor living conditions, erratic supply of water and power, high unemployment rate, corruption and high cost of living [2], culminating in a massive offline protest on August 4, 2021 in the country’s capital city, Accra. The accessibility of social media presented citizens with a great platform to express their displeasure to the government. Participation in the online movement was engendered by its popularity and reach in the political and digital public sphere. It reflects an actual case of digital democracy and a claimed space [3] as it featured the values of direct citizens’ participation in politics, diversity, collective identity and a rejection of the top-down approaches of representative democracy.
Background History and Context
Ghana holds an enviable record as a beacon of democracy in Africa for its successes with electoral democracy and peaceful elections. However, its economy is still hampered by overspending, corruption and inequality. Gyimah-Boadi and Mensah [4] emphasise that despite Ghana’s democracy gaining ground, there is a high incidence of genuine poverty, extreme deprivation and a widespread perception of economic alienation often linked to poor leadership. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana in March 2020 resulted in negative socio-economic consequences, including job losses, reduced income and source of livelihoods. There were income-level reductions for over 770,000 workers, with about 42,000 employees losing their jobs during the country’s COVID-19 partial lockdown [5]. Ghana’s Trades Union Congress (TUC), further reckoned that 100,000 jobs were lost in the formal sector and 400,000 in the informal sector, barely within four months of the onset of COVID-19.
To further worsen the situation, the Government of Ghana in 2021 embarked on an aggressive programme of revenue mobilisation, introducing several taxes. This situation, coupled with perceived government insensitivity to the financial hardship faced by the people, high unemployment rate and mismanagement, triggered citizen agitations. The emergence of the #FixTheCountry movement was, therefore, a direct citizen-led response to the gross mismanagement and socioeconomic injustice by successive governments. The timing of the online protest was significant as COVID restrictions on public gatherings had led to a significant increase in social media use and digital activism. A few months after its inception, more than 700,000 [6] Twitter users (local and international) used the hashtag to express their grievances with the economy.
On August 4, 2021, the online campaign transitioned into a physical protest. Many citizens took to the streets to express their thoughts about the country’s economic hardship. Ghana has a considerable history of protests and social movements evolving with different goals and objectives, but essentially promoting social inclusion and expanding participation in democracy [7]. Compared to the Occupy Ghana movement in 2014, which was primarily made up the middle class and elites, the #FixTheCountry movement targeted ordinary Ghanaians, particularly the youth. The non-partisan hashtag attracted individuals across the political divide [8] and different social groups.
Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
The campaign hashtag was initiated by social media influencer Joshua Boye-Doe [9], otherwise known on Twitter (X) as Kalyjay, who made several posts that ended with #FixTheCountry as a response to increased prices and taxes. These posts resonated with several other social media activists, celebrities, influential On-Air media personalities, lawyers, advisors and other activists who joined the online campaign using the hashtag in their tweets. Even though the names of the leaders or organisers of the movement are not explicitly published on its website ,media reports point to some professional individuals (including lawyers, media personalities and political activists) as the Convenors, with Ghanaian lawyer and political activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor, acknowledged as one of the lead Conveners of the movement [10].
Before the August 4 protest, the Economic Fighters League [11] (a non-partisan political movement fighting for economic freedom for Ghanaians) joined the online campaign and collaborated with the Conveners to carry out the background coordination and on-ground mobilisation for the protest. Regarding funding and sponsorship, the movement’s website has a“Donate” tab, which provides options for both local and international donations. It also features an expenditure tab that provides an account of donations received with a list of some contributors for its interventions.
Participant Recruitment and Selection
Since its inception on Twitter (X), the movement’s recruitment process has been open to all. The popularity of the online campaign hugely facilitated participation locally and internationally. Information gathered from the movement’s website shows that participation in its activities is open to anyone signing up with just a name and an email address to be a member, and its free. One can sign up through its website or Twitter and Facebook pages, which are used to alert citizens to local political and social campaign issues.
These platforms also serve as a hub where members can share information (videos, pictures, etc.) and perspectives to increase awareness and strengthen solidarity. Liking, sharing and commenting on these platforms enable people to demonstrate solidarity with the movement. It also has a Call-to-Action tab where citizens can join as volunteers or district coordinators to devote their time, skills and knowledge. In both the virtual and physical spaces, recruitment of participants is organic as people who identify with the tweets join in. For instance, ahead of the August 4 protest, Twitter verified posts by celebrities and media personalities using the hashtag #FixTheCountry, increased the social media momentum and captured mainstream media attention.
Methods and Tools Used
Method: E-democracy: This method enables the use of digital technologies like the internet and social media to enhance democratic processes. By expanding participation, amplifying marginalised voices and increasing transparency, this approach becomes testing grounds for bottom-up democratic innovations [12].
In the case of the #FixTheCountry movement, the participatory process was initially online, through its Twitter and Facebook pages. These platforms had become the new tools of mobilisation, which bring people hitherto disconnected together and provide an opportunity for the expression of emotions of fear and anxiety during and post COVID-19 [13]. For instance, its online petition for a new Ghanaian Constitution garnered more than 41,000 signatures. Despite this, the movement also adopted a hybrid approach using some offline tools to expand its reach and mission.
Tools and Techniques: The offline tools adopted were protests and occupations, while mainstream media coverage (radio and television) also provided announcements, visibility and mobilisation opportunities. Live tweets from the protest enabled local and international audiences who could not be physically present to also follow and engage with the posts and videos shared.
What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation
When the #FixTheCountry hashtag emerged on X (Twitter) on May 3, 2021, it quickly went viral as thousands of people joined in. The youth-led online campaign was initially decentralised and leaderless. In a space of barely three months into the campaign, the people behind the tweets, including Kalyjay, Vormawor, celebrities and the Economic Fighters League, called for a physical protest on May 9. This attempt was however, injuncted by the Ghana Police Service citing COVID-19 risks, which resulted in a long court battle. Eventually, the intended May 9 protest was held online across various social media platforms.
Other notable incidents took place that inadvertently increased the visibility of the campaign. For instance, on June 25, 2021, the Police arrested about 11 members [14] of the #FixTheCountry campaign who were protesting in front of the Accra High Court, where a new application for an injunction of the protest was heard. They were later released on bail. On June 26, 2021, a #FixTheCountry supporter and member of the Economic Fighters League (EFL), Ibrahim Kaaka Mohammed, was also attacked [15] and later died in hospital, prompting local protests by young people. Meanwhile, the Police, in a surprising U-turn, allowed antigovernment protests in the capital, Accra, on July 6, 2021, by Ghana’s leading opposition political party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), over rising insecurity and police violence. This led the #FixTheCountry campaigners to set August 4 as the new date for its street protest.
Decisions were largely taken by the Convenors even though there is no public record of how internal decisions were arrived at. Meanwhile, Twitter and Facebook engendered horizontal interactions and momentum building between the Convenors and campaigners/protestors through posts, likes, comments and shares as well as souvenirs such as T-shirts, car stickers, etc. The outpouring of grievances in tweets like “We are suffering”; “We are Angry” helped to unify different complaints. As emphasised by Nartey and Yu [16], such discursive framing and strategies constructed resistance and “enabled the protesters to recruit support for their stance, organise the masses for social action, and lay the foundation for the offline demonstration” (p. 18). The August 4 protest, therefore saw students, artisans, unemployed, employed, entrepreneurs, professionals, academics and renowned celebrities at the forefront of the protest [17]. Similar protests later occurred in Obuasi in the Ashanti and Takoradi in the Western regions of Ghana, entrenching the movement’s appeal and giving it a national character. With the potential of social media to transcend boundaries of time and space, Ghanaians in the diaspora, from Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom also organised similar protests.
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
First, a significant influence of the #FixTheCountry campaign is evidenced in the wide media attention [18] it received. The hashtag also attracted counter-hashtags like the #FixYourself and #FixYourAttitudes from government officials, pro-government individuals and groups who used them to deride the campaigners. The movement was peculiar because unlike other protest movements in the country, which are usually led by off-shoots of political parties or the middle class, this was youth-led and non-partisan. The fact that the movement at the onset was not politically affiliated also ensured neutrality for citizens who joined the campaign. In a country like Ghana with a strong duopolistic political system, the significance of being non-partisan also helped to counter the fissures of social media eco-chambers which would have endangered the credibility of the movement. Following the protest, the #FixTheCountry digital campaign transitioned into a fully-fledged social movement, taking up other causes. For instance, it embarked on an online campaign for a new Constitution in Ghana, organised the Occupy Saglemi to pressure government to save the abandoned Saglemi Housing Project, and was a key part of Occupyjulorbihouse, which was to occupy Ghana’s seat of government, the Jubilee House. Its on-the-ground activities are organised in tandem with social media actions, which stimulate real-life engagement, as evidenced in other movements such as #EndSars, BlackLivesMatter and #BringBackOurGirls [19]. It is also worth mentioning that when the new government, National Democratic Congress, came into power in January 2025, it has constituted a high-level Constitutional Review Committee to review Ghana’s 1992 Constitution.
Analysis and Lessons Learned
Studies on digital activism and social movements emphasise the instrumental role of social media for mobilisation and democratic participation and how they revolutionise the activities of social movements. The #FixTheCountry campaign is an apt demonstration of a claimed space or citizen-led democratic experiment [20] as it highlights how social media help to mobilise common identities, shape new political discourse and increase citizen’s legitimacy outside formal political structures. It fits within the paradigm of radical democracy or agnostic pluralism [21] which emphasise conflict, dissent, diversity and differences as essential and inevitable to democracy rather than a threat. It also exemplifies Rambukkana’s hashtag-politics on Twitter [22] as it allowed more diverse individuals to unite and mobilise attention around common causes.
The hybrid nature of communication technologies deployed contributed to the success of the engagements [23] and helped to mobilise international support, especially Ghanaians in the diaspora. Furthermore, regardless of its radical posture, particularly the constant attack on Ghana’s 1992 constitution, the #FixTheCountry movement expanded the frontiers for youth activists and other dissident groups within the political system to demand democratic accountability from the political class [24]. This resonates with the movement of squares, such as 15M in Spain and Occupy in the USA, which equally challenged the mainstream conceptions of liberal democracy and representative government as well as its core values of transparency, participation and equality.
However, although digital activism democratises political participation, #FixTheCountry campaign still largely privileged digitally fluent individuals. A major challenge of e-democracy initiatives, such as the #FixTheCountry movement is the exclusionary dynamics where access to technology and digital literacy can make participation uneven [25]. Conway (2013) also opines that the conventional notions of political and digital literacy often instigate online surveillance by pro-government agents [26]. In the case of the #FixTheCountry movement, the government’s response to the protest was initially defensive and hostile, as evidenced in the court injunctions and arrests of some leading members. Another major challenge observed was that the movement’s grievances appeared to be too many i.e., jobs, corruption, a new constitution and improved social amenities, risking a single unified demand. Such a situation meant that the government had to pick and choose whichever it so desired even if it listened. Additionally, the #FixTheCountry movement at some point suffered cracks and fragmentation, as the Economic Fighters League broke away from the movement. This action brewed suspicions of partisanship and credibility among the Convenors with some suspected to be hirelings of the opposition NDC. Also, Kalyjay, who had initiated the hashtag, did not join the August 4 protest, citing the fear that had engulfed his family. With the opposition now in power, the question remains if the #FixTheCountry movement would be able transcend the cooptation of Ghana’s political duopoly as has been the fate of most social movements in Ghana.
See Also
https://participedia.net/case/endsars-protest-against-police-brutality-in-ogun-state-nigeria
https://participedia.net/method/social-media
https://participedia.net/organization/occupyghana
References
[1] Della Porta, D. (2020). How social movements can save democracy: democratic innovations from below Book, Cambridge, England: Polity, Total pages 1 online resource (ix, 194 pages)
[2] Nartey, M. and Yu, Y. (2023). A discourse analytic study of# FixTheCountry on Ghanaian Twitter. Social Media+ Society, 9(1), p.20563051221147328
[3] Kavada, A. and Treré, E. (2019). Live democracy and its tensions: making sense of livestreaming in the 15M and Occupy. Information, Communication & Society, 23(12), 2020-10-14, 1787 - 1804
[4] Gyimah-Boadi, E. and Mensah, K. A. (2003). The Growth of Democracy in Ghana Despite Economic Dissatisfaction: Power Alternation Bonus?. Afrobarometer Working Papers (28) Institute for Democracy in South Africa
[5] World Bank. “COVID-19 Forced Businesses in Ghana to Reduce Wages for over 770,000 Workers, and Caused about 42,000 Layoffs - Research Reveals.” Text/HTML. August 3, 2020, n.d.
[6]https://www.modernghana.com/news/1080598/fixthecountry-campaign-goes-international-with.html
[7] Noll, A. and Budniok, J., 2023. Social protest and the middle class in Ghana: A social movement approach of three cases. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 41(1), pp.13-27.
[8] Democracy Erosion Consortium (2022). Non-Partisan and Non-Violent Ghanaian Youth on the Streets: Can They #FixTheCountry? https://www.democratic-erosion.com/2022/01/18/non-partisan-and-non-violent-ghanaian-youth-on-the-streets-can-they-fixthecountry-by-h-kagan-erdogan/
[9] Donkor, A. E. (2021). Can Ghana’s Young Protesters Become a Political Force? https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/06/can-ghanas-young-protesters-become-a-political-force/
[10] Nartey, M. and Ngula, R.S., (2025). An examination of delegitimation in the activist discourse of Ghana's# FixTheCountry lead convener Oliver Barker-Vormawor. Social Semiotics, pp.1-18.
[11] https://fightersleague.org/main/
[12] Della Porta, D., (2013). Can democracy be saved?: participation, deliberation and social movements. John Wiley & Sons.
[13] Daphi, P., Flesher Fominaya, C. and Romanos, E., 2024. Introduction: Mobilizing during COVID-19: social movements in times of crisis. Social Movement Studies, 23(6), pp.667-675.
[16] Nartey, M. and Yu, Y. (2023). A discourse analytic study of# FixTheCountry on Ghanaian Twitter. Social Media+ Society, 9(1), p.20563051221147328
[17] Sualihu, A.K.A. (2022). “Fix the Country’ or ‘Fix Your Attitudes’: A Corpus-Based Study of the #FixTheCountry Protest in Ghana. Hamad Bin Khalifa University (Qatar), p.2
[18] Adams, L. M. (2021). The Politics of Twitter Hashtags in Ghana. Paradigm Initiative Digital Rights and Inclusion Media Fellow 2021, https://paradigmhq.org/the-politics-of-twitter-hashtags-in-ghana-fixthecountry-fixyourself-nameandshame/
[19] Chiluwa, I. and Ifukor, P., 2015. ‘War against our Children’: Stance and evaluation in# BringBackOurGirls campaign discourse on Twitter and Facebook. Discourse & society, 26(3), pp.267-296.
[20] Della Porta, D. & Felicetti, A. (2019). Innovating Democracy Against Democratic Stress in Europe: Social Movements and Democratic Experiments. Representation 58. DOI: 10.1080/00344893.2019.1624600
[21] Mouffe, C. (1999). Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism? Social research, 66(3), 1999-10-01, 745 – 758
[22] Rambukkana, N., (2015). Hashtag publics: The power and politics of discursive networks (digital formations). New York: Peter Lang.
[23] Brobbery, C.A.B., Da-Costa, C.A. and Apeakoran, E.N. (2021). The Communicative Ecology of Social Media in the organization of social movement for collective action in Ghana: The case of #FixTheCountry. Information Impact: Journal of Information and Knowledge Management, 12(2), pp.73-86.
[24] Ahmed, A.H., (2022). Ghana’s Rebellious Civil Society and Democratic Consolidation: A Critical Assessment of# Fixthecountry Movement. African Journal of Social Sciences Education, 2(1), pp.50-72.
[25] Castells, M., (2015). Networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the Internet age. John Wiley & Sons.
[26] Conway, J (2013) Chapter 1: The World Social Forum at the beginning of the twenty-first century in Conway, J Edges of Global Justice: The World Social Forum and Its ‘Others’. Routledge
External Links
Official Website https://fixthecountrygh.com/
Video story: August 4 protest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUwRMl4dPUI
Notes
Photo by https://fixthecountrygh.com/gallery/
