Oliver Mawuse Barker-Vormawor

Oliver Barker-Vormawor is a Ghanaian lawyer and activist, best known as the lead convenor of #FixTheCountry, the youth-led movement that began online in 2021 to demand accountable government. He has been arrested several times over his activism, including on a treason felony charge in 2022. In August 2026 he became Secretary of the Constitution Review Implementation Committee.

Background and education

He was born in Amedeka, near Akuse in the Eastern Region. He studied law at the University of Ghana and also studied at Universite Mohammed V in Rabat and Universite Hassan II in Casablanca, Morocco, and at Harvard Law School. He has been a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge. He co-founded the law firm Merton and Everret, which takes public interest cases for clients who cannot afford a lawyer.

#FixTheCountry

#FixTheCountry started as a hashtag in May 2021, with young Ghanaians listing complaints about unemployment, the cost of living, power cuts and corruption, and grew into street protests. Barker-Vormawor co-founded the movement and became its most visible convenor.

Arrests

In February 2022 police arrested him at Kotoka International Airport as he returned from the United Kingdom. He was charged with treason felony over a Facebook post saying that if the E-Levy passed, he would "do the coup myself". He was later also charged with careless and inconsiderate driving. On 21 September 2023 he was arrested as a convenor of Occupy Julorbi House, a three-day protest at the seat of government. Exactly a year later, on 21 September 2024, he was arrested again as convenor of a second Occupy Julorbi House protest, this time against illegal mining, charged with unlawful assembly and refused bail.

After the 2024 election

In January 2025 Parliament's Appointments Committee summoned him to substantiate his claim that members demanded money from ministerial nominees. On 28 August 2026 the Attorney-General, Dominic Ayine, inaugurated an 11-member Constitution Review Implementation Committee chaired by Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, with Barker-Vormawor as its secretary. The committee is to turn the government-approved recommendations of the earlier Constitution Review Committee into legislation.