A message to President Akufo-Addo: Stop your obsession with power, Our health and lives matter most

A few days ago, Ghanaians were left bewildered about news that the Attorney General’s Office had filed an appeal at the High Court seeking to quash an earlier ruling restraining the National Identification Authority from continuing its mass registration of the GhanaCard in the Eastern Region, an  act which was found by the court to be in breach of the Presidential directives relating to measures to prevent the spread of the deadly corona virus.  

We note that in its appeal  the AG argues that the GhanaCard will be needed in the upcoming voter registration exercise and for that matter, a halt of the exercise will result in an “irremediable harm” to the NIA. Ghanaians await the ruling of the courts on the appeal with bated breadth.

Suffice to say that, the NDC is  deeply disappointed with the duplicity of President Akufo Addo. His stance as evidenced by the AG’s  appeal is a betrayal of public trust, because the NIA, being a public institution that reports directly to President, should not be encouraged to act with such levels of impunity in flagrant disregard of the President’s own lawfully instituted public health directive to deal with a National Emergency of this magnitude.  

The reasons for seeking a review of the court ruling as stated by Deputy AG, Hon. Godfrey Odame, has  let the cat out of the bag. It is now abundantly clear that President Akufo-Addo’s mind is actually preoccupied more with manipulating the electoral process in the hope  of winning the 2020 elections than in dealing frontally with the clear and present danger posed by the global pandemic.  

Our passionate appeal to President-Akufo Addo is that, there is a time for elections and there is time to save human lives, the  lives of the very people who voted him into power and whose votes he may need again. Mr President the time to save our lives, Ghanaian lives is NOW, not later. 

President Akufo-Addo owes the country a responsibility to rally together all our people to face the pandemic. We expect him to demand full compliance of all directives he has given so as to send a clear and unambiguous message to all public institutions and individuals that he means what he says. The President must also restrain his overzealous Electoral Commissioner who seems totally oblivious to the escalated health crisis posed by the pandemic and which requires marshaling all available resources and undivided attention. That is how serious governments have approached this pandemic. 

We wish to reiterate what the President probably knows already. We are a nation in crisis. The number of reported cases is on the increase. The number of casualties is slowly inching up. The situation will be dire, if the incidence of infection begins to rise beyond the capacity of our health care system and infrastructure. 

We urge  President Akufo-Addo to do the right thing and bring all state institutions in line with his clarion call for Ghanaians to face COVID 19 enemy collectively. We hope he will not deny knowledge of the AG’s appeal just as we are told he did with the Clergy when they asked about the GhanaCard registration then going on in the ER, during the Jubilee House Prayer session. 

Your Excellency, please be true to your conscience. Ghana is facing a serious national emergency and you must let that be your priority, your one and only concern until this darkness fades away.  Not GhanaCard, Not compiling a new voters register nor the December elections is worth any Ghanaian live. Let it the peoples health, the peoples safety and the lives of the elderly, our mothers, fathers  and children be above all else.

–Signed–

Hon Johnson Asiedu Nketiah

General Secretary