ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
And so, throughout the ongoing registration exercise, Ketu South has been reduced to a military zone, where combined forces of military personnel, National Security Operatives, Immigration and Customs Officers sometimes storm people’s homes, ransack them and molest innocent Ghanaian citizens in search of so-called Togolese nationals who allegedly attempt to part-take in the voter registration exercise.
This dehumanizing and disturbing tribal bigotry being sanctioned by President Akufo Addo and the NPP in the Ketu South Constituency has degenerated into preposterous extremes, where security officials now indiscriminately attack vehicles conveying people to funerals, markets and other places, and literally beat them up on suspicion that they are being conveyed to registration centers.
Scenes of uniformed military personnel at peaceful polling stations and streets of the Ketu South Constituency and other parts of the Volta Region over the past few weeks, accurately describe the posturing of the Akufo-Addo government towards a group of people this regime considers unfavourable to its reelection bid.
If we may ask, when did it become a crime to be deemed as loyal to a particular political tradition?
Are political strongholds not commonplace in most jurisdictions around the world?
Why is President Akufo-Addo up in arms against an innocent ethnic group just to massage his political ego?
Is the President not supposed to unite rather than divide us?
Only last week, the Volta Regional Minister, Dr.
Archibald Yao Letsa led a team of military personnel to the Ketu South Constituency after reports emerged of high enthusiasm among the people of the area to defy the intimidation antics of NPP to register in their numbers.
Archibald Letsa was accompanied by Hon.
Elliot Edem Agbenorwu, the Municipal Chief Executive of Ketu South who turned himself into a “Citizenship Inspector”, by personally confronting majority of his own indigenes and forcibly preventing them from taking part in the registration exercise.
Sadly, these are high-ranking government officials in the Volta Region, who are fully aware of the challenge rules governing this registration exercise, yet they are gladly lending themselves as pliant agents of President Akufo-Addo’s tribal agenda against their own tribesmen for political capital.
Oti Region Ladies and gentlemen, the situation is not different in the Oti Region.
Only yesterday, about 17 Ghanaians who were in a queue waiting for their turn to register at a village called Kpena in the Nkwanta South Constituency of the Oti region, were arrested by armed National Security operatives on grounds that they speak French, hence are Togolese.
In the process, the so-called National Security operatives without any provocation fired warning shots at the registration center thereby disrupting the entire registration exercise at the center.
Ladies and gentlemen, since when did Other incidents in the Asougyaman Constituency, Atiwa East Constituency and other parts of the Eastern Region Friends from the media, we also wish to bring to your attention similar acts of ethnic discrimination and tribal bigotry being pursued by the Akufo Addo-government in parts of the Eastern Region so you appreciate how widespread this evil agenda is.
In the Asougyaman Constituency for instance, Ewe settler communities have witnessed the deployment of two military groups, made up of both uniformed and non-uniformed armed men who are going around molesting and terrorizing innocent people.
The uniformed military men are being led by one Lieutenant Daniel Opoku, whilst the non-uniformed troop is being commanded by one Sergeant Bio, who often resorts to brandishing offensive weapons at innocent civilians at various registration centers, as was witnessed at the Senchi registration center recently.
In the Atiwa East Constituency, Hon.
Abena Osei Asare, MP and Deputy Minister for Finance has been terrorizing and physically preventing non-Akans from partaking in the ongoing registration exercise.
During the fourth phase of the registration exercise, Hon.
Abena Osei Asare, together with the Anyinam Police Commander and some thugs belonging to the NPP, stormed the houses of about 30 non-Akans who registered unchallenged at Anyinam and forcibly took their voter ID cards from them with the excuse that they are not Ghanaians.
It was this same Deputy Finance Minister, Abena Osei Asare, who stormed registration centers at Abekwaase in the Atiwa East Constituency with armed NPP bandits and physically chased out all Non-Akans at the three (3) registration centers during the fourth (4th) phase of the registration exercise.
Similar happenings in the Central Region In the Central Region, ethnic discrimination via state sponsored military intimidation and orchestrated thuggery have been widespread since the ongoing voter registration began in the Upper Denkyira West Constituency and other areas.
The aim, obviously, is to disenfranchise Voltarians and northerners in areas like Denkyira Adaboi, Denkyira Abura, Denkyira Bremang, Denkyira Brofoyedru, Denkyira Domenase, and currently, Denkyira ANANEKROM where the intimidating activities of NPP hoodlums have reached an alarming crescendo.
These communities have large Ewe and Northern population because of mining in the Offin River and Farming.
In these places, the NPP MP for Upper Denkyira West, Samuel Nsowah Gyan with his youth organizers acting as hoodlums have on some occasions, yanked registrants off registration queues saying they were either Ewes, and therefore Togolese ; or Northerners, and therefore Burkinabes.
It will interest you to note, that in some cases public announcements are caused to be made at the outset of the registration exercise to warn ewes, northerners and other minority groups to stay away from registration centers if they valued their lives and properties.
For these NPP hoodlums, the resort to the use of challenge forms is alien to them as they display violence in the full glare of the security personnel at the registration centers.
This state-sponsored ethnic discrimination and tribal bigotry in the ongoing voter registration exercise targeting Voltarians, Northerners and Muslims in our Zongo communities is very pervasive in the Upper Denkyira East and West, Assin North, Central and South, Twifo Atti Morkwaa, Awutu Senya East and West, Agona West and East Constituencies of Central Region.
The dishonesty and hypocrisy of President Akufo-Addo Distinguished friends from the media, despite the fact that some of the above shameful incidents have been widely reported in both the traditional and social media space, President Akufo Addo who is the sponsor, promoter and ultimate beneficiary of the ongoing electoral-driven ethnocentrism and tribal bigotry has failed to take any action to nip these disturbing acts in the bud.
We in the NDC are not surprised by the posturing of President Akufo-Addo towards this rather worrying trend, because this has always been his plan.
This is why he has chosen to see nor hear any evil about any infamy or injustice to the Ghanaian people, once it advances his electoral fortunes.
Only last week Friday, President Akufo-Addo claimed in his speech delivered to Muslim leaders in Asawase during the celebration of Eid, that the ongoing Voter Registration exercise has been peaceful in the Ashanti Region and across the country.
The President further claimed that every Ghanaian has been allowed to take part in the registration exercise and that no one has been denied the chance to register on account of their tribe and ethnicity, because there is unity and togetherness among Ghanaians.
How dishonest can Akufo Addo be?
We know that the President was not misled by his handlers on this occasion.
President Akufo-Addo knows deep down his heart, that he currently presides over a country where ethnic tensions are alarmingly high and threatens the peace and cohesion of the nation.
President Akufo-Addo knows fully well, that thousands of Ghanaians are being threatened, molested and physically prevented from taking part in the ongoing registration exercise simply because they are Ewes, Grumahs, Gonjas, Frafas, Moshie or belong to other ethnic groups.
The media space is awash with incontrovertible video and pictorial evidence on these happenings.
Yet as usual, he has chosen the path of deception and dishonesty to throw dust into eyes of unsuspecting members of the public to conceal the evil tribalistic voter suppression agenda he is supervising.
The odious dishonesty and hypocrisy being displayed by President Akufo Addo in this matter is the height of insensitivity and an insult to the intelligence of Ghanaians and must be condemned.
But we know that the good people of this country are discerning and very much aware of what is going on, and will not be hoodwinked by his lies anymore.
We have also taken notice of a laboured effort by the Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul to attempt to justify some of the ethnocentric events we have witnessed in the ongoing registration.
The Defence Minister's ludicrous attempt to explain away the sheer use of brute force and physical assault by certain elements in the once revered Ghana Armed Forces to prevent some legitimate Ghanaians from taking part in the ongoing registration process, only goes to reinforce President Akufo-Addo's attitude of 'see no evil, hear no evil'.
For the Defense Minister of Ghana to be justifying the unfortunate use of armed soldiers in peacetime to terrorize innocent civilians belonging to a particular ethnic group in areas such as Banda, Oti Region and Ketu South is ample testament to a deliberate targeting of that ethnic group, regardless of where they find themselves.
Dominic Nitiwul should stop the unlawful use of armed military men to harass innocent Ghanaians based their tribe or ethnicity in the ongoing voter registration exercise, if he still has a conscience or shut up and spare us his lies if he has nothing meaningful to say.
We have had enough of their chicanery and insults.
Conclusion Distinguished friends from the media, never in the history of Ghana, have we seen this level of tribal discrimination, lawlessness and divisiveness in our body politics as we are witnessing today under the despotic, tyrannical and tribalistic Akufo Addo government.
What is happening is shameful and totally reprehensible, and has the potential to plunge our beloved country into civil unrest if not halted.
The NDC is a political tradition that holds dear the peace, unity and development of our beloved Ghana because we are patriotic and also guided by history.
We are very much aware of the divisions that our dear nation suffered in the immediate pre and post-independence era.
In addition, the deep scars of the obnoxious and ethnocentric aliens’ compliance order in the early 1970s under Dr.
Kofi Abrefa Busia – a celebrated forbearer of the NPP – which drove people perceived to be non-Ghanaians from Ghana remains an eternal dark spot in our history.
It is, therefore, surprising but as others put it, not unsurprising that Nana Akufo-Addo whose father served as the President of Ghana during Dr Busia’s era will repeat such travesty of justice against sections of Ghanaians just because of their ethnicity.
We unreservedly condemn the misuse of the military, police service and other security services to intimidate and harass innocent citizens in the ongoing voter registration exercise.
Under our electoral laws, where an eligible voter must register to vote is determined by residence and not tribe or ethnicity.
We equally wish to make the point, that under the laws of Ghana, the provision of security for voter registration and other election related activities is the responsibility of the Ghana Police Service and not the Ghana Armed Forces.
No military officer has the right or power to prevent any person who turns up at voter registration centers from registering.
Therefore, the deployment of military officers to harass and prevent people from registering in the ongoing voter registration exercise as we are witnessing across the country is unlawful and unacceptable and must cease immediately.
For emphasis, it does not take one’s lineage of the Grumah, Ewe, Ga, Dagomba or Akan ethnic Group to qualify to be registered.
Rather, it is one’s proof of residence and possession of a Ghana Card, a Ghanaian Passport or two guarantors, which qualifies one to have his or her name registered in any part of this country.
Also there are clear rules under our electoral system that allows political party agents to challenge any registrant they consider ineligible.
Therefore, brazen lawlessness those NPP hoodlums and a few unscrupulous military men are engaging in by brutalizing innocent citizens and preventing them from registering based on their tribe must cease forthwith.
The NDC demands the immediate withdrawal of military men who have been deployed for the purpose of the ongoing voter registration exercise in the Banda constituency, the Central Region, Ahafo Ano North Constituency, Ketu South, constituency, Oti Region, and other parts of the country.
We wish to remind President Akufo-Addo that Ghana remains a unitary state, and that Ghanaians must continue to be united by a common destiny and not by tribal or ethnic cleavages.
Ladies and gentlemen of the media, we acknowledge the vital role you in the media have played and continue to play towards sustaining the peace and modest developmental gains we have chalked as a nation.
We call on you who are the fourth estate of the realm, Moral Society, Traditional Leaders, CSOs and all men and women of conscience to rise up and speak out against the well orchestrated ethnic discrimination, harassment and tribal bigotry in the ongoing voter registration exercise being supervised President Akufo Addo and his New Patriotic Party.
Ghana is a peaceful country.
And we all have a duty to God and country to speak up against the shameful culture of tribalism, ethnocentrism, divisiveness and lawlessness that President Akufo Addo is gradually normalizing and entrenching in our body politics.
We have entered the final phase of the Electoral Commission’s voter registration exercise, yet there are several thousands of Ghanaian citizens who have not been able to register due to a state-sponsored ethnocentric discrimination being championed by President Akufo Addo and his failed NPP regime against people belonging to certain tribes.
We wish to encourage all such Ghanaians and all the teeming supporters of the NDC not to give up, but to persist and defy the intimidation antics of the despotic, tribalistic and tyrannical NPP/Akufo-Addo-government.
We have an opportunity on 7th December to vote out Akufo Addo and stop the ongoing tyranny and tribal bigotry.
To refuse to register to vote is to allow this evil to triumph.
The John&Jane ticket is our only hope for a united and peaceful Ghana, where the rights of all will be respected irrespective of their ethnicity or tribe.
And so let us all go out in our numbers in the next four days, starting from today, to register to be able to vote in the December polls.
It is only by so doing, that we can accomplish the mission of kicking out this tribalistic and nepotistic Akufo Addo-government.
That is the only way we can restore Ghana back on the path of peace, togetherness and true progress.
We cannot survive four (4) more years of tribal bigotry, four (4) more years of harassment, four (4) more years of violence and lawlessness, four (4) more years of bastardization of state institutions and four (4) more years of injustice under despotic Akufo-Addo.
Good morning distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the media.
It is my singular honour to welcome you on behalf of the National Democratic Congress to today’s press conference.
We thank you for honoring our invitation at such short notice and we are grateful for our continuous collaboration towards upholding probity and accountability on the part of duty bearers, values which the Founding father of the Great NDC and Ghana’s 4th Republic stood for.
In furtherance of the above ideals, we continue to remember and honour the memory of our late Founder and an illustrious son of Ghana who was also the first President and founder of the Fourth Republic, His Excellency Flt.
Friends from the media, as the entire nation was united in grief over the passing of a man who was noted for being an avowed anti-corruption campaigner and an unrepentant bastion of justice, probity and accountability, the fight against corruption under President Akufo-Addo received its final nail in the coffin on Monday, 16th November, 2020, following the sudden resignation of the Special Prosecutor, Mr.
Martin Amidu.
The Ghanaian people were later to be treated to the very chilling and confounding details of why the Special Prosecutor decided to call it quit, and how President Akufo-Addo has been frustrating his work through various actions and inactions that have conspired to make the sacred functions of that anti-corruption institution untenable.
Indeed, we have also taken notice of the lame and pathetic rationalization of President Akufo-Addo’s actions, proffered through a wishy-washy statement signed by his cousin and Executive Secretary, in a desperate attempt to save face.
We, and the vast majority of the Ghanaian people, choose to treat President Akufo-Addo’s desperate post-facto rationalizations with the contempt they deserve.
Many were those, including some of us, who saw this day coming.
Given the fact that the OSP was supposed to fight corruption, which has become arguably the greatest achievement of President Akufo-Addo, it was only a matter of time before the subject of corruption set the Special Prosecutor and President Akufo-Addo on a collision cause.
Lo and behold, this is exactly what has happened, and unsurprisingly, corruption has prevailed over the Special Prosecutor, forcing him to abandon his office.
We are saddened to observe, that under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo, corruption has become such a monstrous force, devouring every force which dares to stand in its way.
When we speak of corruption in Ghana today, we are talking about a canker supervised by the President himself, with the active participation of his family, friends, cronies and appointees, all of whom are scrambling and jostling for their share of the national booty.
Distinguished friends, when in 2016 President Akufo-Addo was being presented to the Ghanaian electorate as “incorruptible”, we knew that was a well-packaged fraud.
Today, Ghanaians have come to know our President for who he is – a walking contradiction, pretending to be fighting corruption, whilst at the same time, fighting and frustrating anyone who dares to expose or question the stinking corruption he is superintending over.
The fact of the matter is that, the Office of the Special Prosecutor was never set up by President Akufo-Addo out of a genuine will to fight corruption.
This position that we in the NDC have always espoused is grounded on the fact that, from the very outset, President Akufo-Addo conceived this office as one to be used to spite his political opponents, while protecting his own who are busy plundering the resources of our beloved country.
This view is buttressed by the very opening paragraph of Mr.
Martin Amidu’s letter of resignation in which he reveals that his letter of appointment as the Special Prosecutor was issued on 30th January, 2020 and only delivered to him, on 5th February, 2020, two clear years after his appointment.
Ladies and Gentlemen, that President Akufo-Addo would issue a letter of appointment to the Special Prosecutor in January 2020, two clear years after the pomp and pageantry that greeted the supposed outdooring of the Special Prosecutor on 10th January, 2018, speaks volumes of President Akufo-Addo’s lip service to the fight against corruption.
Akin to taking off a bird’s feathers and asking for it to be identified, President Akufo-Addo out-doored a Special Prosecutor in January 2018, confined him to a three bedroom office in Labone after denying him office accommodation for close to two years, with a few seconded staff and tasked him to fight corruption.
What is even sad is the fact that President Akufo Addo has refused to pay the Special Prosecutor and his deputy for over two years, that is, since their appointments.
Clearly, to all intents and purposes, President Akufo-Addo set-up the Special Prosecutor’s Office to score cheap political capital and nothing more.
As Mr.
Martin Amidu himself has made us aware in his letter of resignation, President Akufo-Addo has frustrated and interfered in the discharge of his mandate, until he could no longer take kindly to the President’s interference in his investigations into the ‘Agyapa’ Royalties Transaction.
Indeed, as the now former Special Prosecutor observed, President Akufo-Akufo had been under the delusion that the Special Prosecutor would act as his poodle.
Unbeknownst to Mr.
Martin Amidu, we have always known that President Akufo-Addo’s avowed fight against corruption was a charade.
And if there was anyone out there who still believed or hoped that President Akufo-Addo sought to fight corruption by setting up the OSP, we are quite sure that person would have given up by now.
Only last week, friends from the media, we addressed you on our observations relative to the risk of corruption assessment conducted by the Special Prosecutor on the ‘Agyapa’ Royalties scam.
At that press briefing, we stated categorically that President Akufo-Addo is refusing to give up on the stinking Agyapa scam, hence his insistence that all discussions on this subject should be deferred until after the upcoming election.
True to our word, and as corroborated by the OSP in his letter of resignation, President Akufo-Addo had asked the SP, Mr.
Martin Amidu to shelve his corruption risk assessment report.
As has become the nature of President Akufo-Addo, this so-called review was to afford him and his cousin the Finance Minister, the opportunity to whitewash their crimes in the ‘Agyapa’ deal which had been badly exposed by the Special Prosecutor.
As if the above interference in the ‘Agyapa’ Royalties investigation was not enough, the Special Prosecutor tells the whole world how President Akufo-Addo once again invited him to his office on 1st November, 2020, and ordered him to accept and incorporate into his risk of corruption assessment report, comments from his cousin and Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta who was himself the subject of investigation in the ‘Agyapa’ heist.
Even more scandalous was the fact that President Akufo-Addo is said to have requested the Special Prosecutor to be allowed to as it were ‘handle’ the Agyapa matter.
We just learnt from a leaked tape of an interview between Martin Amidu and Citi FM’s Umara Sanda, that President Akufo Addo’s cousin and finance minister, Ken Ofori Atta, actually went to the house of the Special Prosecutor at the time he was conducting the corruption risk assessment on the Agyapa matter to influence his work.
Distinguished friends from the media, that President Akufo-Addo has cemented his dubious reputation as the “Corruption Clearing Agent” is no longer in doubt.
Since assuming office as President, Akufo-Addo’s only way of fighting corruption is to sweep serious crimes under the carpet and declare his appointees innocent even before they are investigated.
Martin Amidu has stated in black and white in his resignation letter, how President Akufo-Addo assumed the role of a judge in his own cause in a matter he himself has been indicted relative to the excessive executive approval he gave the stinky Agyapa deal on 24th March 2020 and his assent of the Minerals Income Investment (Amendment) Act, 2020 (Act 1024), with the aim of giving retroactive effect to the Parliamentary approval of same.
Why has the President been this desperate in the ‘Agyapa’ matter?
How could President Akufo-Addo, a man who swore to defend the cause of right, be this corrupt?
Friends from the media, to say that President Akufo-Addo’s so-called fight against corruption has been lost, is an understatement.
The NPP/Akufo-Addo government to have gone to the extent of threatening Mr.
Martin Amidu with death for undertaking the Agyapa anti-corruption risk assessment.