The NPP as a political tradition has consistently described the people of Volta as foreigners. They do so with overtness but more so with innuendoes and odious speeches. NPP sponsored groups in the past have campaigned for new voter’s register with the sole reason that there are one too many Togolese voting in the Volta Region.
Even their vice president, Mahamudu Bawumia, in the past produced a discredited material to suggest that there were some Togolese, captured in both the voter’s register of Ghana and Togo. These and many more are coordinated efforts to undermined the people of Volta as true blooded Ghanaians.
Kwabena Agyapong, Freddy Blay, Kennedy Agyapong among tall list of NPP’s stalwarts are on record to have made unfortunate statements about Voltarians in a manner that questions their numerical strength or Ghanaianness. The penultimate to join the bandwagon of anti-Volta campaign is the de facto prime minister, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko who queried the electoral numbers from Ketu South Constituency with some hifalutin bigotry. The latest Freudian slipper of the anti-Volta agenda is KT Hammond and the Institute would not like to transcribe or repeat his unfortunate remarks.
The current CI 126 and previous guidelines for conduct of our national elections have always made explicit provisions for both singular and dual citizens to duly register and vote irrespective of the country of their first and second nationality as well as where they primarily live. It is therefore noteworthy about NPP’s sleepless fixation on the people Volta as regards Togolese.
It is ridiculous and unacceptable to persistently undermine the Ghanaianness of a people who bore the composer of the ever melodious and resonating Ghana National Anthem. Philip Gbeho and many great men of Volta who contributed immensely for Nkrumah’s Ghana would be turning in their tombstones.
The NPP since its formative years has associated itself with elitist democracy and exclusionist governance. The manifestation of this belief pans out in the fact that, in NPP, everyone is not equal. That is why “A” would lose their jobs whiles “B” keep their jobs if they both engage in same act of corruption. It is therefore not surprising to see all these shenanigans by the NPP to disenfranchise a section of people they deemed less Ghanaians and elite.
Following the predictable ruling of the Supreme Court, the NPP deployed armed military personnel to border towns in the Volta Region ostensibly to intimidate them from partaking in the new voter’s register. This swift deployment heightens the suspicion of NPP’s overt attempts to frustrate and rig the processes of the new voter’s register especially in the strongholds of the NDC. The Institute reckons with the Set-up B deployments to distract the minds of unsuspecting people from their real intentions.
The NPP after railroading the EC into engineering a new register is unsatisfied and wants to harness skulduggery and flimflammery to save its sinking and incompetent self from their massive and clinical failure.
The government should take a leaf from the happenings around the world. America with all its sophistication and military might was unable to handle the long oppressed and repressed minorities when they rose up. The Volta people once had King Togbui Agorkoli and they are familiar with tyranny and how to deal with it.
The Institute would like to called on the Peace Council to break its deafening silence on the government’s microaggressions on the people of Volta. We also implore all well-meaning Ghanaians and organisations to call out the government for conducting herself in a manner that engender polarity and uneasiness in our civil order.
The Institute would like to rehash the profound words of John Mahama on the recent Supreme Court ruling:
Our forefathers founded this nation with the motto “Freedom and Justice”. It is clear today that never in the history of our 4th Republic have these two lofty ideals been in such short supply. Nonetheless, no politically engineered register can save this unashamedly corrupt and incompetent government of family and friends from humiliating defeat come December 7.
We would like to crave the indulgence of all Ghanaians, as a matter of maintaining the sanctity of our democracy, to come out and register and punish the NPP government for choosing power over their lives in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
God bless our homeland Ghana; And make our nation great and strong; And help us to resist oppressors' rule; With all our will and might….