NPP Cannot Tolerate Opposition - Mumuni

Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, NDC-Kumbungu, on Wednesday said President John Agyekum Kufuor's zero tolerance dictum was applicable to the government's "zero tolerance for opposition". Under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government there has been suppression of political opponents, intimidation, gagging and intolerance, he said.

Contributing to the debate on the President's State of the Nation Address, Alhaji Mumuni gave a catalogue of incidents, which he regarded as blight on the NPP administration's claim of being the apostles of the rule of law and the protagonists of democracy.

Alhaji Mumuni, whose contribution met a lot of hecklings, point of orders and uproar from the Majority side declared that the claim by President Kufuor that his government was a listening one could be described "as a government that listens but does not hear."

Alhaji Mumuni, who was continuing the debate he had to cut short on Tuesday when the Speaker ruled him out that he would not be heard in the House because he had refused to withdraw a statement, purported to have been made by Mr J.H. Mensah, Senior Minister at an NPP congress in Accra.

He withdrew the statement on Wednesday and apologised to the House for the Speaker to allow him to continue his contribution to the debate.

He said although the majority of Ghanaians opted for the 1957 time frame for the Reconciliation Bill, the government ignored that opinion. Alhaji Mumuni said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) consequently sent a petition to the President on the issue that the law if assented to would rather divide the nation and polarise the body politic.

"The President did not even acknowledge receipt of the petition. That is not a government that listens," he said. Alhaji Mumuni said Albert Hamid Odinga, a Belize national and a friend to Former President Jerry John Rawlings was arrested under bizarre conditions and was charged under the seditious law when at that time that law was under repeal.

After the repeal of the law Odinga has been under arrest at the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) since June, last year and his lawyers have now filed a habaes corpus at the appeal court.

At that juncture the Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey drew the House's attention to the fact that Parliament has no right to touch on a case that was pending at a court of jurisdiction.

Alhaji Mumuni continuing said his own car was seized from him by the security services for more than six months and it was only released to him through the intervention of Mr J. H. Mensah, Senior Minister, while the same government detained Mr E. T. Mensah, a member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram for more than 48 hours contrary to the Constitution.

This brought Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to his feet on point of order saying that the BNI once arrested him in Koforidua under the previous regime under suspicion. The Speaker said such matters should not be introduced into the debate and that "we must make progress. I was also in the BNI cells before."