Kwame Manu Sarpong
The General Secretary of the Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD), Kwame Manu Sarpong, has cautioned the public against ‘tribalising’ the decision by the government to deploy military personnel to enforce the closure of the country’s borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking in an interview with DAILY GUIDE on Tuesday, the former aspiring presidential candidate of RDP in the 2012 elections said attempts to make government’s decision of protecting the sovereignty of a state appear as an attack on particular ethnic groups do not auger well for the unity of the nation.
He, therefore, appealed to the public, especially the main opposition political party, National Democratic Congress (NDC), to refrain from making ethnocentric statements that could fuel unnecessary political and ethnic tensions at a time when the Electoral Commission (EC) is compiling a new voters’ register for the December general election.
He also observed that claims by the NDC that security deployment is to intimidate and prevent persons living in the Volta Region from partaking in the registration exercise was farfetched since the region has one of the least numbers of deployed military personnel.
The Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul, at a press briefing in Accra on Monday, disclosed that 72 personnel were deployed to the Volta Region. The Oti Region also had 72, Upper West, 69; North East, 102; Northern, 110; Upper East, 207; and Savannah Region, 21.
“If there is a problem at all, it should be assessed broadly since the Volta Region is not the only place that had military personnel being deployed to,” he said.
Besides, Mr. Sarpong congratulated the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on its successful election of parliamentary candidates and also endorsing President Akufo-Addo as the flagbearer of the party in the upcoming elections.
He disclosed that the RPD would hold its primaries in August subject to approval from the executive council of the party who will meet on July 11.
By Issah Mohammed