Co-Chairman of the Joint Steering Committee of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe and Lolobi (SALL) Traditional areas, Dr Joe Addae, has kicked against the Electoral Commission’s (EC) move to get Parliament to amend Constitutional Instruments 119 and 128.
Deputy EC Chairman in charge of Corporate Services, Dr Eric Bossman Asare on JoyNews’ The Probe, said the Commission has begun the process of amending the Constitutional Instruments to allow residents of SALL to vote in the next elections.
But, Dr Addae says tracing the root causes of their disenfranchisement will resolve their grievances.
“Now you have come back to say you are going to amend the Constitutional Instruments to pave way for us to vote in four years’ time. This doesn’t make sense to me and I think the people of Akpafu and Lolobi will not be satisfied with this arrangement.
“Let’s go into the nitty-gritty of what happened because we never petitioned to be part of Oti [Region] and then you just come and add us to them. And so let us go to the basic cause of our disenfranchisement and consider the way forward,” he said.
During the 2020 General Elections, residents of SALL could not participate in the Parliamentary Elections held in the Buem Constituency.
This was after the EC, in a statement dated 6th December 2020, said the SALL residents, who fall within the Guan District, could not vote in the Parliamentary Elections because the constituency where they could vote had not been created.