Your statement on SALL shows dishonesty and gross incompetence – IMANI claps back at EC

The founder and president of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has reacted to the Electoral Commission of Ghana’s response to his assertion that the commission is to be blamed for the disenfranchisement of the people of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi, and Likpe (SALL) during the 2020 parliamentary election.

The EC, in a strongly-worded statement, accused the IMANI boss of relying on misleading audio circulating on social media to accuse it of disenfranchising the people of SALL.

Listing the various stages and supporting details as to why and how the people of SALL could not vote for a parliamentary candidate in the 2020 elections, Michael Boadu, Acting Head of Public Relations at the EC, said that IMANI’s claim is a falsehood.

“How can any well-meaning person accuse the Commission of disenfranchising the good people of SALL when the facts are so clear?

“It is unfortunate that IMANI continues to peddle falsehoods and untruths about the Commission at every point and turn. His narrative that the Commission disenfranchised the people of SALL, now the Guan Constituency, is FALSE. We urge the public to verify information put out by IMANI with the Commission for the truth and the facts,” portions of the statement read.

But reacting to this, Franklin Cudjoe insisted that the EC disenfranchised the people of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi, and Likpe because its actions caused them not to vote in the 2020 parliamentary election.

“The exclusion of voters in the SALL Traditional Areas from voting in the election for a Member of Parliament was a flagrant violation of the right to vote of the said voters, which amounts to being disenfranchised. As a consequence, the people of the SALL Traditional Areas do not have representation in the 8th Parliament of the 4th Republic. This has rightly been described by Prof. Kwaku Asare as 'the cardinal sin' of the 8th Parliament.

“It is brazenly dishonest on the part of the Electoral Commission to refer to my statement about the people of SALL being disenfranchised as 'falsehood and misinformation' or 'falsehoods and untruths about the Commission'. None of the so-called 'facts surrounding the inability of the residents of SALL, now the Guan Constituency, to vote in the 2020 Parliamentary Election' that are recited in the 14th May 2024 statement of the Electoral Commission, can take away the simple, indisputable fact that, on the eve of the 2020 elections, the Electoral Commission publicly announced that the people of SALL could not vote in the Parliamentary election,” he wrote in a statement copied to GhanaWeb.

He added, “The people of SALL were, therefore, disenfranchised and are not represented in the 8th Parliament of the 4th Republic.”

The IMANI boss added that even the lawyers of the EC, in a court hearing on a case regarding the people of SALL not voting in the parliamentary election in 2020, expressed regret.

He went on to narrate how the actions of the EC led to the disenfranchisement of the people of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi, and Likpe.

Read his full statement below:



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