The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has condemned the decision by President Nana Akufo-Addo to remove Chair of the Electoral Commission (EC), Charlotte Osei as well as her two deputies from office.
“We learn with shock and sadness the decision of president Akufo-Addo to terminate the appointments of EC Chair and her two deputies,” National Organiser, Kofi Adams told journalists during the wee hours of Thursday, at the headquarters of the NDC where the party leaders officially registered their disapproval of the President’s decision.
Information Minister, Dr. Mustapha Hamid, in a statement issued Thursday, June 28, 2018, announced the removal from office of Charlotte Osei and her two deputies- Georgina Opoku Amankwaah and Sulley Amadu- for misbehaviour and incompetence.
The removal is on the recommendation of a committee set up by the Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo to investigate alleged acts of corruption, misconduct and misbehaviour by the three commissioners, the statement indicated.
Read: Charlotte Osei, two others removed
However, the leadership of the opposition party says the accusations against Charlotte Osei are trumped up claiming that the decision remove her as well as her two deputies, is part of a well thought out plan by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to rig the 2020 elections.
“We demand almost immediately that they must give us reasons for which they think that the chairperson and her two deputies should be removed from office. The attempt and the fear for which reason they have set out to remove an arbiter of our elections so that they can rig the 2020 elections,” Kofi Adams told the journalists.
Mr. Adams also accused the Nana Akufo-Addo administration of embarking on needless transfer of workers at some state institutions including the Electoral Commission, which he said the NDC will employ legal means to resist.
“What they have done is to destroy our institutions but we will not allow them to extend their destruction to institutions to the electoral commission. This is an institution that we will religiously guide and protect,” he rallied the supporters who gathered at the event.
Mr. Adams announced that, the NDC and followers some opposition parties will hit the streets in Accra on Friday, “to show their anger” to the government over the removal of the three top EC officials. “Will meet at Obra Spot to continue…and there we will say other things that we have to say,” he said.
