Ghanaians urged to patronise district level elections

Mr Nana Addo-Aikins, a legal practitioner and former public tribunal chairman, has highlighted the need for Ghanaians to patronise the upcoming district level elections as the surest way to development.

He said the elections should be supported because metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies are closer, more directly accessible to the people and most crucial to their development.

In a statement issued to stakeholders of local governance, he noted that Ghana’s current system of democracy, which surrenders the people’s democratic rights to others who think and act for the people, “has woefully failed the nation and its people”.

“Ghanaians indeed abandon or neglect or avoid the upcoming district, municipal and metropolitan-level elections and others to follow, at their own peril, since this is where their true emancipation from poverty, disease, ignorance and non-development lie,” Mr Addo-Aikins said in the statement.

The former public tribunal chairman called on Ghanaians to avoid any form of political party sponsorship and vote-buying politics as that would result in the surrender of their powers, authority and resources to be used against them.

He also urged Ghanaians to put up “a serious resistance” against attempts by politicians to introduce partisanship into the elections, which could shut out “useful non-partisan elements in society who would want to contribute to nation building on a non-partisan basis”.

The statement said the time has come for the people to use their political power to think and develop themselves by getting involved in local governance, which would win them their fair share of resources for development.