Hold party leadership responsible for violence – Nduom

The 2012 presidential candidate of the Progressive People’s Party Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom says political party leadership must be held accountable for any acts of violence by their supporters.

According to him, the alienation of party leadership from the conduct of their supporters has allowed for violence to fester in Ghana’s body politics over the years. Dr Nduom believes this will change once the electorate demand good behaviour of political leadership.

“We must hold the leaders of the political parties and the candidates accountable for any violent acts committed by their people if we do that we will realize peace and stability in our elections,” Dr Nduom said.

The call by Dr Nduom comes in the wake of some reported violence by party representatives at various registration centres across the country ahead of the 2016 elections. The Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions have particularly witnessed violent scenes at registration centres where ‘machomen’ have disrupted the registration process.

Dr Nduom believes the National Identification Authority must be resourced to carry out their constitutional mandate of identifying Ghanaians.

“It's the NIA that has the right to do that (compile a biometric register) not the Electoral Commission. We have ignored this and arguing over how to put a voter’s register together,” he said while addressing students of the Wa Polytechnic.

He wants government to release money to the NIA to complete the process since the process is already half way through.

“Over 15 million Ghanaians have been registered by the NIA why do we argue when we can give them the money to complete the registration and use their data rather than rely on the Electoral Commission who do not have that mandate.”