Daniel Y. Domelevo
The Former President, John Mahama, who led the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to another electoral defeat in 2020, has accused the Akufo-Addo led government of discriminating against some tribes in the country.
According to the ex-President, certain tribes in the country have been sidelined, attacked and discriminated against for quite too long; adding that the discrimination has been extended to Mr. Daniel Y. Domelevo, the Auditor General who just retired from public service.
He said Mr. Domelevo was compelled to retire because he was from a certain tribe that he said had suffered great injustice and abuse under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.
Reacting last week to the Supreme Court’s judgment that dismissed his petition to have the 2020 Presidential Election rerun, Mr. Mahama conveniently refused to explain the circumstances that made the presidency to ask Mr. Domelevo to retire because he had attained the retirement age of 60; and dangerously said the Auditor General was forced out because he was from a particular region.
Mr. Domelevo was asked to retire because it had been found out that he tampered with his records at SSNIT in order to remain in government employment, but Mr. Mahama glossed over the facts and just attacked the government for political convenience.
“Others were falsely branded as foreigners and their citizenship called into question unjustly, an abhorrent nation-wrecking prejudice which had been directed against a certain ethnic groups of this country and had continued till date, and had even recently visited cruelly on the Auditor General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo,” he said.
He alleged that President Akufo-Addo’s government also strategically used the military to create fear and panic in some targeted ethnic groups to discourage them from participating in the 2020 polls.
Mr. Mahama said the selective deployment of military personnel in some parts of the country was used as a tool to instill fear in citizens in those areas and prevent them from taking part in the voter registration and other electoral processes.
Mr. Mahama also alleged that the NPP government spent huge amount of state resources to launch unprovoked attacks on some people, leading to avoidable deaths of some innocent NDC members.
“In the last election, unprecedented levels of state funds were doled out by the ruling party and provoked deadly violence during and after the 2020 general elections.
Mr. Mahama said “in the process, eight of our compatriots were murdered in cold blood and several others maimed during the process of the elections.
“We have designated these compatriots whose bloods were shed just because they sought to participate in what was a purely civil exercise as Martyrs of Democracy, to whom we shall dedicate an appropriate monument when the time comes.”
Interestingly, the police administration in their post-election press conference said their preliminary reports indicated that almost all the incidents that resulted in deaths in particular constituencies were started by Mr. Mahama’s own NDC supporters.
Mr. Mahama charged the NDC members “never must a government be allowed to turn a simple process of an election into a bloodbath. Never must impunity of this magnitude be allowed to fester in our democracy.
“Our independence and the current democracy we enjoy were fought for and attained through the sacrifice and blood of our founding fathers, mothers and our compatriots. Never must we accept convenience over principle.”
What was meant to be a criticism of the final judgment of his petition spilled over to other issues that had no bearing on the proceedings of the court.
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi