A Deputy Information Minister Pius Enam Hadzide has described as a facetious, controversial tribal comment made by Adanse-Asokwa Member of Parliament K.T Hammond.
According to him, the comments must be jettisoned as a mere joke from the Lawmaker.
In an attempt to explain why armed Military personnel has been deployed to border towns of Ketu South Municipality in the Volta Region ahead of Tuesday’s voter’s registration exercise by Ghana’s Electoral Commission, the Lawmaker said last week that “the Togolese and the Voltarians – when I talk about Voltarians, the Volta Region – remember the history … the same tribe, so, they walk into [Ghana] but they are not Ghanaians”.
“When they walk in there, they can do whatever they [want], so, I guess that is the reason for that [military influx].”
“There is a classic example”, he recalled. “You remember 2008, the second round; we had so much – 100,000 or so votes leading Prof Mills at the time of the second round. In the next round, one constituency, Ketu South, cleared all the [votes] we had. Where did they come from?” he asked.
“You see, so, everybody from wherever they came to vote, so, this is what the whole thing is about; 35,000 people at the time voted; the next one, everybody on earth voted there; where were they coming from?
“So, this is the whole issue: we want there to be sanity”, he added, noting: “The military is there to make sure that you vote if you are a Ghanaian, you vote if you have the constitutional right to vote; that’s all there is to it”, he said.
“They [military personnel] are not electoral officers, but they are a peacekeeping force … So, the soldiers, the police, and immigration are just maintaining the peace, making sure there’s no infiltration. I mean, come on, let’s be serious; what’s the point in going through all that we’ve gone through, to the Supreme Court and all that then allow a porous border for people to come through and then infiltrate the register again? We would have been back to where we started”
But reacting to the comment by the MP which has received public backlashed, the Deputy Information Minister Pius Enam Hadzide said On Accra based Peace FM Monday Morning that “KT Hammond is not a spokesperson for the government. If he expresses his opinion, that doesn’t mean it is the position of the government. He used the word “I guise”. I have listened to the tape several that calmed me down a bit because I was very furious. At first, I was very enraged because I am a Voltarian so if you say Voltarians are not Ghanaians it also affects me. It cannot be. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo saw me as Ghanaian reason he appointed me as a deputy minister same as Hon. Amewu, Kofi Dzamasi, Dr. Archibold Latsa, and many other Ewes serving in this current government. If we were not Ghanaians on what Constitutional power would the President stand on to appoint Togolese as Ministers.so it cannot be true that we see Volta Region residents as non-Ghanaians”.
He added “Some things should be taken as joke.so if you hear someone saying Voltarians are not Ghanaians, it is something we must just laugh over it. We shouldn’t take it into any serious consideration but because NDC has no message and running mate they are just doing propaganda with his comment, embellishing and inciting”.
The Deputy Information Minister hinted that the government will officially address the issue but stated categorically that the deployment of security to major border towns in the country including the Volta Region is to enforce border closure directive to curb the spread of Coronavirus.
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Obed Ansah
