Former President John Dramani Mahama
Former President John Dramani Mahama is trying hard to push an agenda that there is an attempt to ostracize some areas, particularly the Volta Region, from Ghana.
He said, “It appears that the current rulers of this country want to create an environment that is exclusive of some of our citizens.”
Mr. Mahama launched a veiled attack on the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government over the weekend at the palace of Togbe Afede XIV, Paramount Chief of Asogli State in the Volta Region and current President of the National House of Chiefs.
Volta Tour
Mr. Mahama had toured some voters’ registration centres in the region and was rounding up his tour when he attacked the government, claiming that the deployment of the military to frontier towns recently was part of that agenda to achieve the aim of making some people non-citizens.
Wild Claims
“We have never experienced the situation where the citizenship of our people is being questioned because we have always been one people,” he said, adding, “The examples that have led to an unpleasant consequences in some of our neighbouring countries where they started questioning who is a citizen and who is not a citizen and in some cases it has led to civil wars where persons have died.”
“We do not want this situation to come into our country and that is why I, as a politician, and as President of Ghana had always worked to ensure that we had an environment that was inclusive of everybody,” he added.
Military Deployment
He said specifically that the soldiers deployed to the Volta Region were moving from house to house to question people’s citizenship and intimidating the people, adding “I think that this is a very dangerous path they are threading.”
“There are also reports that security personnel go into people’s houses looking for so-called foreigners or aliens. I do not think that that is the mandate of the military. I have visited several communities and I have assessed what the situation is and in many of the communities, there have been complaints about intimidation.
“We know that issues of citizenship and ethnicity are very emotive matters and I urge all our citizens to maintain a very cool head. I know that there may be provocation and intimidation, but I urge all our people to just maintain restraints and calm and let us go through this registration exercise and let us remember we must maintain the Covid-19 protocols,” he pointed out.
Deployment Ruse
He said the government’s explanation that the deployment of the soldiers to frontier towns to stem the Covid-19 pandemic was a ruse “took a lot of us by surprise.”
“The government’s explanation is that they were being deployed to help seal the border against people coming in with the Covid-19 disease. Unfortunately, the coincidence of the start of the exercise with the deployment of the military has left an unpleasant taste in the mouths of lovers of democracy because this Covid-19 pandemic has been with us for some months now, at least since March, and we started with only two persons infected.”
Mr. Mahama said “if there was the need to seal our borders tightly with the military it was when we had only two cases. Today, we have exceeded 20,000 cases and so one wonders whether the threat of Covid-19 is from outside or from inside,” adding “there is already community spread within our country and so our fear of Covid-19 is not about who is bringing it from outside because the Covid-19 is inside here with us already.”
Selling Ghana Out
He said “indeed our neighbouring countries should rather be afraid of us spreading it into their territories because we have a higher infection number than any of our three neighbouring countries,” adding “what a lot of people surmise is that the deployment of the military might be for other reasons other than Covid-19. And whatever it may be, the net effect is that there are cases where people feel intimidated because of the presence of the military.”
“And so we know that all over the country, we have communities that spread across these artificial boundaries. We were just coming from Tume where their lands are across on the other side. The lands belong to Ghanaians. As a result of the presence of the military and the sealing of the borders, people who are crossing to go to their farms are prevented from doing so because a registration exercise is taking place,” he added.
Civic Duty
Mr. Mahama stressed “we know that the civic right to register and vote is one of the fundamental rights of every citizen of Ghana, and it is a very important civic exercise that must be carried out in an environment where all Ghanaians who are eligible to register, can come out without fear of intimidation to do so.”
Peaceful Ghana
We have lived in this country peacefully since independence. When President Nkrumah declared independence, there were many ethnicities within the boundaries of the new state called Ghana. There were Ewes, Gonjas, Ashantis, Fantes, Fulanis, Nzemas, Gas, all types of ethnicities. There were white people; there were Lebanese, Syrians, Indians and… all persons within the boundary of the new country called Ghana were citizens of Ghana. And so by that declaration, their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren are all Ghanaians. Our diversity and unity make our nation strong.”
Oath of Office
He appeared to say that when he was President he protected every Ghanaian but President Akufo-Addo was reneging on the oath he swore to the people of Ghana
“When the President swears an oath he swears the oath to be the President of all Ghanaians not some Ghanaians. When the President swears the oath of office, he swears an oath to do justice by all manner of persons in this country and I think that this President must live by his oath and ensure that every Ghanaian who is eligible to be a part of this process is protected to be a part of the process,” he added.
EC Share
He once again berated the Electoral Commission (EC) for going ahead to compile a new voters’ register, saying “we had hoped to avoid the Covid-19 situation because we believed that we had a register that we could utilize for this election.
“The thing about data is that it never expires. Once you have collected the data it is there forever and you do not need to discard data and recompile data every couple of years just because you want to create a new register, but unfortunately the EC has a determination of its own to do what it wants to do and even though we tried to use the legitimate authority of the courts to be able to avert this situation it did not work out and so we are all compelled to go through this process.”
The EC has cordoned off the registration centres but there were more queues outside the centres and said he hoped it would have consequences for the country soon.
“I am running for office to ensure that the peace unity and national integrity of Ghana is maintained,” he said.
By Ernest Kofi Adu