Former Minority Leader, now the Minister for Education, Haruna Iddrissu, has confessed to deliberately blocking the decision by the Akufo-Addo government to amend part of the 1992 Constitution to allow for the election of all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs).

According to Haruna, though the then Minority led by him at the time, knew the bill had to be reviewed to stand the constitutional test, they deliberately kept mute and capitalised on same later to torpedo the agenda.

He was speaking last Monday, August 10, 2026, in Accra, at the Second National Dialogue on Decentralisation.

Explaining the constitutional lacuna the minority kept quiet over, Haruna indicated that President Akufo-Addo wrote to Parliament to amend Article 243(1) without touching Article 243(3) and Article 248.

Article 243(1) of the 1992 Constitution mandates the president to appoint district chief executives for every district. Clause 3(b) of Article 243 further allows the president to remove DCEs.

Article 248 of the 1992 Constitution says any individual seeking to be elected as a DCE shall present himself to the electorate without any political party affiliation.

“When President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo sought to amend the constitution to make DCEs elective, I was a minority leader, a very responsible minority leader. So we chose to punish Nana Addo Dankwa on matters of principle of constitutional law and law. Your minister [Ahmed Ibrahim] is here. Coincidentally, he was the one I used together with Muntaka,” Haruna said.

He continued, “So Nana Addo Dankwa wrote to the speaker of parliament for an amendment to the constitution, having gone through the Council of State, for us to elect MMDCEs and DCEs. In principle, we all agree that it should be elective. So Nana Addo Dankwa, at the time as president, then wrote to the speaker of parliament for amendments to amend Article 243(1), which was to remove the appointment of DCs to make it elective.

“But you know Nana Addo Dankwa, a brilliant constitutional lawyer. So in my culture, if you follow such a huge constitutional lawyer, you also become a hero. So I then told the minority that let’s frustrate him constitutionally and legally. So I then told him and his whip that no NDC MP should comment on the constitutional amendment proposed by government for good reason. So they asked me why,” he said.

Haruna continued that, “So President Nana Addo Dankwa rightfully and tactfully and legally said, remove appointment and make it elective. Then his advisors, including his attorney general, went to sleep. They didn’t advise him on Articles 243(3) and 248. So I then told the minority that [they should shut their mouths]. When 90 days have passed and the president cannot go back to the Council of State, then we remind him that he’s in error. That’s how we defeated it.

“So we then reminded him that you cannot elect a DCE and then leave the power of the president to fire the same DCE. Is it done? So that’s how we defeated Nana Addo,” Haruna narrated.

On the dictates of Article 248, Haruna debunked claims that assembly elections are nonpartisan.

“That pretence, it has to stop. What is nonpartisan? Well, we all know what we do when it comes to the election of MMDCEs. So that is my take.

While telling the story of how the NDC Minority “punished” the NPP Majority and government, Haruna cautioned the current officials to not repeat the “mistake” of the past.

Speaking of the decentralisation system in Ghana, he advocated a significant overhaul, stressing the election of MMDCEs to deepen democracy to the base. Ghanatravel guide

“The only thing we can do to elevate decentralisation to a higher height is to make the elections of the MMDCEs elective and move away from the appointed principle into a competitive, democratic election open to the Ghanaian public,” he said.