The fact that the acting President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, stands to be a beneficiary of the Bawku Traditional Area crisis precipitated due to the indolence of the Government only two months to the 2024 elections should the registered voters in the six constituencies in the UER be unable to exercise their franchise freely and fairly, comes into focus with his inaction as acting President during the October 2024 conflict period.

As Ghana gets closer to the 2024 election season the NPP and the NDC are deploying various deceptive tools to win over the electorate whom they will each forget after securing the votes of the electorate to come to power for the next three years until the next election year. The 2024 elections should be won by established facts and projections with high degrees of probability for actualization. Ghana must always come first!

Ghanaians have demanded and expect that the mandate of the 7th Parliament will be consistent with the letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution; and the promises by the President to protect the national purse and be impartial in the governance of our dear country. The evidence of criminal and unconstitutional conduct in the whole body polity is overwhelming, but unconstitutional attempts are being made through influential chiefs and elders to let bygones be bygones. This is contrary to the demands of the Constitution for accountability, transparency and fairness in governance. May the 7th Parliament and the President remember that even walls have ears and we hear the attempts at trying to compromise the President’s anti-corruption agenda in the name of reconciliation. The President’s anti-corruption drive will be still-born with such compromises and reconciliations. May Ghanaians at the end of this 7th Parliament’s tenure be proud that it has helped to restore the underlying principles and values that Ghanaians gave to themselves the Fourth Republican Constitution, 1992.

The free market place of ideas for expression of personal opinions appears to have carried some away to assume the President-elect’s prerogative of whom he may appoint into his Government by trying to stampede him with choices for several positions within his administration. What has been and is worrying for me is that some citizens are using this natural democratic process of citizen free expression of expectations and anticipation to telephone or speak face-to-face with individual citizens to suggest that they have, are recommending or intend to recommend them to the President-Elect for particular appointments. It is not in the interest of the President-Elect, his Government or the incoming Parliament. Such actions are inevitably a harbinger of cronyism and corruption in the body polity.

The results of the just ended Presidential and General Elections showed that Ghanaians have voted against the propaganda use of the state-owned media by ignoring all those false and fake news stories published about opponents of the incumbent Government, contrary to the requirements of the Constitution for fair reporting by the state-owned media. The state-owned media cannot continue in the old style of being a ruling Government or party media as opposed to a public media paid for by the tax payer to give citizens impartial reporting of news. It is time that the state-owned media took seriously the independence and freedoms guaranteed them under the Constitution and moved away from self-imposed controls or censorship to please the Government of the day. Corruption takes many forms. Misreporting or skewing reports in consideration of any benefits whatsoever or promotion from the Government is corruption of the media. Let 7th December 2016 be the harbinger of the actualization of a just, fair, transparent and accountable state-owned media reporting under the 1992 Constitution.

The decision that we, the majority of fellow citizens have made at this year’s elections portends hope, expectations and anticipation in each of us who put Ghana First at the ballot for good governance, the rule of law, probity, accountability and transparency in the coming four years of the administration of the President Elect, his Government and the Parliament Elect. I congratulate and thank you all, once more, fellow citizens for your Gargantuan efforts in heeding the advocacy of the various civil society and activist organizations in enhancing constitutionalism and democracy at this year’s elections in changing this Government. God bless you all, God bless the Republic of Ghana and may God let us always Put Ghana First.

The eyes of every citizen have been opened to the arbitrary conduct and impunity exhibited by the Electoral Commissioner, and the political parties are now fully aware as to how the power of the Commissioner can be wantonly abused. Let us watch the rigging agenda of the Commissioner and her mentors during the remaining election period. She has already engineered elections in such a way that a good six weeks have been lost for the campaign period of the NDP, PPP, and the PNC. Her actions affect the equal right and facilities for political campaigning mandatorily enjoined by the Constitution. Fellow citizens be alert to the Commissioner’s other tricks. The Commissioner cannot be trusted to fairly implement her mandate under the 1992 Constitution without vigilance on our part. We must defend the Constitution!

The Electoral Commissioner is using technical grounds to render nugatory the decision and orders of the Supreme Court, where the Court ordered that “in appropriate cases to afford candidates the opportunity to comply with regulation ((2) of the Public Election Regulations, 2016 (C.I. 94)”. She is taking advantage of the Supreme Court’s ruling to wager on the fact that she is entitled by the Court’s ruling within the new nomination period to put forth alleged new and profound errors that will make it impossible for even Nduom and those others who have judgments in their favour, to alter or amend the specific errors for which they obtained their respective judgments in the High Court. Let us wait for how the Supreme Court will rise to the occasion of this new twist to its ruling should any applications be made to it today.

The Electoral Commissioner has effectively rigged the election. She does not appear to understand that the letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution enjoins her to ensure that every political party and its aspiring presidential candidate or an individual aspirant has equal time and opportunity to canvass for the votes of the electorate. There can be no free, transparent and fair elections when disqualified aspiring candidates have their names added to the ballot more than three weeks belatedly, because the Commissioner’s preferred and approved candidates would have had an unequal advantage over them in the contest for the Presidency. Nobody can convince such candidates, their political parties, and supporters and the objective observer that they had a level playing field for the 7th December 2016 elections within the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

The EC Commissioner's arbitrary and unlawful disqualification of 13 aspiring presidential candidates and her arrogant attitude towards those distinguished citizens and their political parties or supporters does not conduce to her image as an impartial arbiter of elections. In Ghana's present circumstances the plurality of political parties fielding candidates at the presidential elections is the only guarantee to effectively policing the process by the presence, and alertness of their supporters, polling assistants and others at the polling stations on the day of elections. Whosoever wins the 2016 Presidential Elections must do so transparently and fairly. We must put Ghana First by equalizing the disadvantages of the political parties in opposition to ensure that they have a fair and even chance against any abuse of incumbency by this Government which is definitely very desperate to remain in power after eight years. Let us watch every step of this Electoral Commissioner in this election year.