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Politics of Monday, 18 August 2014

Source: radioxyzonline

We must move away from ethnocentrism - Dr. Apaak fumes

Presidential Staffer, Dr. Clement Apaak has rubbished claims made by certain “political operatives” in the country that the ruling NDC allegedly bused people from the Upper East region to come and participate in the voter’s registration exercise in Kumasi, the capital city of the Ashanti Region. The move according to pundits, is for the NDC to get more votes in the NPP's stronghold come 2016.

Dr. Apaak expressed his “utter disgust” at the accusations made and questioned the “logic” behind it. Per Ghana’s electoral voting pattern, the Ashanti region over the years has remained a strong hold of the NPP. Although the Presidential staffer didn’t direct his outburst at the NPP, by inference, he did.

According to him, these are “schemes” by people who “seek to maintain their presence in the media limelight” and advised such persons to “put some critical thoughts into” such schemes.

He said, “I can’t make submission on this [limited voter’s registration exercise] without mentioning my utter disgust about the tendency of some political operatives in this country to create scenarios...create conditions that seek to keep them in the media limelight to make them popular. I particularly resent these attempts to try and suggest that the NDC bused people particularly from Upper East all the way to Kumasi to register. I mean how is this even logical?

“The Upper East region in terms of population is only bigger than the Upper West region and there’s no reason for a place that is less populated will have people to spare to go to a densely populated part of the country to register to vote. What of [do you think about] the politicians from those parts of the country? I’m from Upper East. I have my constituency. Would you really think that I will allow my party to come and take people from my constituency to go and register in Kumasi?

“It simply doesn’t make sense. So if people are seeking to maintain their presence in the media limelight, at least they should put some critical thoughts into those schemes. Simply arresting a bunch of innocent young people by virtue of what they look like or where they purportedly come from, standing in front of them and taking a picture cannot be used to justify this claim that they come from somewhere because your opponents are trying to flood your region with people that will vote for them come election day," he said.

He cautioned all involved in such “schemes” to desist from being “ethnocentric” with their comments.

"We’ve come a long way in terms of the evolution of our democracy. Let’s get serious in this country because this kind of practices are not only insulting, but are extremely ethnocentric...This types of behaviours cannot be tolerated."