Ag Prez saga: Calls for Speaker’s impeachment ridiculous – Haruna

It is “ridiculous” for anyone to suggest that the Speaker of Parliament Edward Doe Adjaho must be impeached for holding himself as acting President in the absence of both the President and the Vice President, when he has not taken the presidential oath afresh, Employment and Labour Relations Minister Haruna Iddrisu has argued.

Adjaho, within this week, acted in the President’s stead twice, without freshly subscribing to the oath of the presidency. He argued that his September 19, 2013 subscription to the same oath when both the President and the Vice President were out of the country, still held sway, thus unnecessary for him to be sworn in afresh by the Chief Justice.

President Mahama travelled to Burkina Faso Wednesday while his vice Kwesi Amissah-Arthur was also in India on an official visit. He returned home shortly and then took off to Nigeria Friday.

Mahama is also billed to travel to the Vatican Sunday. All these travels come on the heels of an earlier two-week sojourn to the UK and Denmark.

According Article 60 (11) of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution: “Where the President and the Vice-President are both unable to perform the functions of the President, the Speaker of Parliament shall perform those functions until the President or the Vice-President is able to perform those functions or a new President assumes office, as the case may be.”

Also Article 60(12) of the Constitution states that: “The Speaker shall, before commencing to perform the functions of the President under clause (11) of this article, take and subscribe the oath set out in relation to the office of the President.”

A legal practitioner, Kwame Akuffo, argued that the Speaker committed treason when he held himself as acting president without taking the presidential oath of office.

According to him, Adjaho arbitrarily varied the constitution when he decided against retaking the presidential oath.

However, Haruna Iddrisu told Samson Lardi Ayenini on Joy FM’s Newsfile programme Saturday that the impeachment calls are “ridiculous.”