A local governance expert, Issaka Amon Kotei, has echoed that carving out two regions in addition to the existing 10 is impossible.

According to him, getting 80 per cent of residents to accept the creation of another region is untenable because voters in the referendum will not be only supporters and sympathisers of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

His comments come as Deputy Chair of the Electoral Commission in charge of Operations, Amadu Sulley, is anticipating a major challenge to the intended creation of new regions by the government, due to previous voter turnouts.

Mr Sulley said: “In the 2016 election, we had about 69.23 per cent turnout. I’m concerned about that because of late the media are talking about creation of regions. But if you look at our constitution under article 5, if you want to go into that, there is the need for a referendum. It says that you need to have 50 per cent of the registered voters to come out and vote on the issue, out of which 80 per cent should say yes to the issue before it becomes valid. Now we are recording 69.23 per cent and referendum is saying get 80 per cent, so let’s think seriously about it.”

Mr Kotei, speaking to Class News, agreed and said Mr Akufo-Addo only acted smartly by promising the creation of the regions in the lead-up to the 2016 elections.

“We are looking at a referendum, that is, people going to vote. So even if it’s only about NPP supporters going to vote, they will not get 80 per cent. We were going to election and in elections you tell the people what they want to hear. If you remember, President Mahama was saying that yes he had received a petition and he was going to set up a commission to look into it and President Nana Akufo-Addo was a little bit smarter to tell the people that ‘yes, I will do it for you,’” he stated.