The President of Forum for Equity, a human rights non-governmental organisation, Prince BagnabaMba, has urged citizens to be impartial in their discussions on the President’s appointees to serve the country.
“We are all Ghanaians irrespective of our ethnic groups, religion or social background and when we are called to serve, the question that should be on our lips should be whether the person can perform the duties or not and not his political background,” he noted.
Recently, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo appointed three persons, namely Hajia Salima Ahmed Tijani, Dr Peter Appiahene and Reverend Akua Ofori Boateng to serve as commissioners at the Electoral Commission however, some civil society organisations called on Hajia SalimaTijani and DrAppiahene to resign claiming they were politically affiliated to the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Mr Mba was surprised some civil society organisations were calling for the resignation of two of the three people the President had appointed to fill the vacancies at the Commission.
According to him, as far as Ghana was not practicing zero party democracy, the call by the civil society organisations for the two EC appointees to resign was against the spirit of democracy and completely irrelevant.
Mr Mba explained that the country had political history of family members belonging to different political divide like the JB Danquahs, the Ofori-Attas, the Jinapor brothers and so many others and wondered how the civil society organisations were making allegations without proof.
“The newly appointed officers were not entrusted with powers to manipulate and rig elections in favour of the ruling government since constitutional procedures are respected and adhered to, all appointments are subject to national security and intelligence scrutiny and as Ghanaians must always be aware strong institutions give no room for overriding principles of any individual,”Mr Mba pointed out.
He cautioned that ringing bells of anticipation of violence was not in the best interest of the country’s democratic culture and people charting that path must pause and reflect on the repercussions of their decision.
