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Politics of Saturday, 29 August 2020

Source: mynewsgh.com

Show your love to Voltarians by your conduct, not words – NDC MP tells Akufo-Addo

Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, MP for for South Dayi Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, MP for for South Dayi

Member of Parliament (MP) for South Dayi in the Volta region, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, has challenged President Nana Akufo-Addo to demonstrate that he has no agenda against persons of the Ewe extraction by his conduct and not mere words.

This follows the President’s assurance that he has no political or ethnic agenda against the Volta region, after a military operation in the region and others along the country’s borders with neighbouring Togo, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso in the run-up to the conduct of the voters registration exercise generated reservations from the chiefs and people of the area.

Speaking at Keta at a durbar organized in his honour by the Awoemefia of the Anlo State, Torgbui Sri III on Thursday, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo expressed worry that the detailed explanations by the Minister for Defence and other ministers that the deployment of the military personnel along the country’s borders was a nationwide exercise did not appear to satisfy some people.

This, the President attributed to “the mischief that is so easily generated by some elements of social media, and also because of the season we are in, and the determination of some people to stir up ethnic sentiments in the hope of reaping some political advantage”.

He clarified that, there are currently 1,000 military personnel deployed along the country’s borders, of which 163 are deployed along the Volta Region border.

“This has been labeled a ‘military invasion of the Volta Region’. Togbewo, Mamawo, Volta Region is an integral part of the Republic of Ghana, and military deployments in a Region cannot be described as an invasion. Some elements of social media went into frenzy, mostly with old videos taken in Accra and other parts of the world being passed off as residents of the Volta Region being brutalized by soldiers”, President Akufo-Addo said.

He added that, “this has been escalated into accusations of ethnic cleansing, and the Government that I lead has been labeled as tribalist. Whilst social media is a useful tool for information sharing, it can also be, and has been, used to magnify small incidents, place pictures, videos and voices out of context, or simply generate outright fabrications, in order to stir up needless ethnic animosity amongst citizens who are, otherwise, living peacefully with one another.”

But speaking in an interview on Okay FM in reaction to the President’s comments monitored by MyNewsGh.com on Friday morning, Hon. Dafeamekpor said, “It is not what he has said that we will judge him by but by his attitude towards Voltarians that projects him as a tribalistic person”.

“So he must stop the talking and show that through his conduct, then he would be purged of that tribalism tag. If he feels that he is not tribalistic as people are saying, he cannot change that by mere words; it is his conduct and policies that shall inform the people’s impression of him”, he added.