Ignore calls to probe invasion of Parliament by armed military men - Koku Anyidoho to Akufo-Addo

Former General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress, Samuel Koku Anyidoho is asking President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to ignore calls to cause investigation into the military invasion of Parliament on the dawn of January 7, 2021.

According to the suspended NDC Member, the justification of the act by the armed military officers was that their presence on the floor helped restore sanity and averred a situation that would have eventually plunged the country into a constitutional crisis.

“His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; please stay focused as the Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, and ignore any call for a probe into the acceptable move by the Military on, January 7, 2021. We are not in a Banana Republic.

"Is it not a matter of fact that, if sanity had not been restored in Parliament for the nation to have a Speaker, we would have hit a constitutional iceberg by not being able to swear-in the President? Let us stop being pedantic & fastidious just because of politics,” he shared in a series of post on his Twitter page.

Mr Anyidoho again states that the military officers cannot be blamed as their action helped restore order in the election of a Speaker of Ghana’s 8th Parliament which was characterized by violence and chaos between members of the ruling New Patriotic Party and the opposition National Democratic Congress.

“When some MPs decided to chew ballot papers and act in un-parliamentary ways in the chamber of Parliament on the day we were expected to swear-in the President & Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, why should the military be blamed for stepping-in to restore sanity?” he stated.

The armed military who stormed the chamber of parliament have been described by some critics as an attack on the independence of the legislative arm of government and have called for full investigations to establish the brains behind the action.

Some people reacting to Mr Anyidoho’s call on the president pointed out that despite the military coming in to restore order as he would like to claim, the chaos included the alleged chewing of ballot papers by an MP continued after the military had left the floor.

“Wrong! Chewing of ballots occurred after the soldiers had exited. All MPs were seated when they entered, proceeded towards us (NDC). We rose to meet them in the middle of the chamber. The soldiers were invited to cow NDC MPs because we insisted on a secret ballot, nothing else!” NDC Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Clement Abas Apaak replied to Koku Anyidoho’s tweet.