New Constituencies Are Time Bomb – Kufuor
Ex-President John Kufuor
In spite of the several calls for peace in the upcoming elections, he said he feared the nation could be plunged into chaos if the EC did not shelve its intention to create the additional constituencies because the general elections were barely three months away.
For him, the decision was not sensible.
Speaking at the highly patronized NPP rally at the Mantse Agbonaa in Accra, Mr Kufuor said: “I sense only one hitch so far and that is the persistence of the Electoral Commission on creating 45 new constituencies when the register has been compiled for the upcoming elections.”
He asked, “So why does the Commission insist on creating 45 new constituencies on the eve of the elections?”
The occasion saw the introduction of all the 230 parliamentary candidates of the party across the country, with each of the 10 regional chairmen of the NPP given an opportunity to make a comment on the need to vote for the party in the upcoming elections.
In view of the numbers that thronged the venue, the police had to divert certain roads in Accra central.
Mr. Kufuor also asked the Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan-led EC and the various political parties to “be careful that nobody plants a time-bomb between now and the elections”.
“That would not make for peace,” he stated, whilst praying the Commission to desist from anything that could lead to chaos.
Constitutional Backing
A lawyer by profession, the former president insisted, “There is nothing in the Constitution that enjoins the Electoral Commission to create a constituency just because the Ministry of Local Government has decided to create a district.”
“There is nothing like that; so I don’t think the Commission is bound by law to do this thing that is in all respect not sensible. It may make for trouble. So we want to appeal to the Electoral Commission not to do it; so we all go through this election peacefully,” he counseled.
Mr. Kufuor said he attended the programme to see whether the party he once led was ready for the elections, adding that he would leave the event grounds convinced that the NPP was indeed ready to battle and come out victorious on December 7 when the country went to the polls to elect a president and Members of Parliament.
“The whole nation is charged by the election fever; the people of Ghana, I believe are very ready this year to decide it right,” he said.
Ghana At The Crossroads
This, he said, was in view of the fact that “the nation has come to the crossroads on whether the wealth that nature has endowed the nation with is going to be husbanded and managed fruitfully for the people of Ghana.”
For him, this depended on leadership and that not all leaders could husband the resources of the nation for wealth creation, insisting that the NPP had what it took to deliver needed development.
In spite of the fact that Ghana was blessed with rich natural resources including gold, oil and cocoa, the former president indicated that the ruling NDC administration had nothing to show since the government had not been able to harness them for the country’s development.
“This is why Ghana is going to bring back NPP this year so Akufo-Addo and his team will continue from where Kufuor left off in 2008,” he said to a rapturous applause from the crowd.
According to Mr Kufuor, the “NDC divided the country, NPP will reunite the nation to move it forward; NPP is not going to make fetish of ideology… we are coming to manage the resources of Ghana, so that we create equality of opportunity for everybody.”
“Let us go back and convince our entire citizens of Ghana that we want to turn the right road at the crossroads, we want to go the right path and the leadership to take us there is the Akufo-Addo leadership,” he said.