Minority leader warns Prez. Akufo-Addo – Stay off electoral commission affairs

• Posted on July 21, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu says President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is meddling in the affairs of the Electoral Commission at his own risk.

According to him, the Akufo-Addo-led government wants to follow through with its ploy to oust heads of all public institutions but the opposition, he resolves, will not see that succeed at the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC). A petition has been filed with the president to initiate proceedings to get Charlotte Osei, the Chair of the Commission, removed from office.

According to the petitioners, who refer to themselves as the Concerned EC Staff, Mrs Osei has engaged in acts that warrant an impeachment. Already, a trade-off between lawyers of the Electoral Commission Chair and the Staff has been stirred since the petition came to the media front. EC’s legal representative, Thaddeus Sory, has accused the petitioners of a breach of trust in making the petition public, especially making it a subject of several media discussions. At an interaction with journalists at its headquarters on Thursday, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is behind the petition in a grand scheme to oust Mrs Osei.

The party’s leader in Parliament, Mr Iddrisu, warned the president not to “extend his encroachment and political polarization of the public service to the Electoral Commission of Ghana”. He opined that it is the same Commission that declared Nana Akufo-Addo president and to turn his back against it will see him ousted “on the basis of the sovereign mandate of the people of Ghana”. NDC’s Director of Elections Samuel Ofosu Ampofo said the signs are written on the wall as to what the government wants to do with the EC given the experience they have. “We can read in between the lines.”

By Emmanuel Kwame Amoh