Calls for removal of EC boss, deputies justified – Franklin Cudjoe

President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has asserted that calls for the removal of the Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson, Jean Mensa and her Deputies, Dr Bossman Asare and Samuel Tettey, are justified.

This comes in the wake of calls from the Chairman of the National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, urging the EC chairpersons to resign.

Speaking on Channel One TV’s “The Big Issue” on Saturday, June 28, he argued that the EC, under its current leadership, has failed to uphold transparency and accountability, especially in its handling of recent elections.

He criticised the Commission for overspending in past electoral exercises and took particular issue with the disenfranchisement of residents in the Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi, and Likpe (SALL) areas, who were denied what he describes as their right to vote in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

While clarifying that he would not personally file a petition seeking their removal, Cudjoe revealed that IMANI has already petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) over the EC’s conduct.

He emphasised that the issues go beyond partisan politics and touch on the integrity of Ghana’s democratic institutions.

“Everybody knows my position on this. I am not talking about the high-handedness of SALL, as for that one, if I add it, their sins will be worse. I will not cry for them, but I hope that it is done properly and that there are no faceless petitioners.

“I will never petition because everybody knows my position. We have petitioned the CHRAJ already on this matter, and I think they are working on it to see what they can do concerning some of these things, not necessarily their removal but to just prove that they were high-handed, evasive and somehow complicit in our financial woes,” he said.