Oti region long overdue – Obed Asamoah

With barely two months to the referenda for the creation of six additional regions, one of Ghana’s veteran politician and legal luminary, Dr. Obed Asamoah has said the carving out of the Oti region from the Volta region is “long overdue.”

The Agbogbomefia of Asogli State and President of the National House of Chiefs, Togbe Afede XIV accused the Commission of Enquiry set up to investigate the substantial demand for the creation of the new regions of doing a shoddy work, citing disrespect for petitions to extend its public hearings to other parts of the region.

He further alleged of a wrongful and bias interpretation and implementation of the constitution in the creation of the regions to a campaign promise.

Dr. Asamoah who is a native of the yet-to-be established Oti region and the longest serving foreign minister and Attorney General of Ghana under Jerry Rawlings from 1981 to 1997 held a differing opinion.

According to the 82-year-old statesman, the call for the whole region to take part in the referendum for the creation of the Oti region is “legal nonsense.”

“The region is long overdue. Those against it should do so through the ballot box and stop making noise. The suit to let all in the Volta Region vote is legal nonsense,” Dr. Asamoah told journalists.

Agitations needless

President Akufo-Addo has described as unfounded and needless, the agitations generated over who should vote and should not vote in the Volta region in the upcoming referendum to divide the Volta Region into two separate regions.

Addressing the chiefs and leaders of the Ketu South Traditional Council at the Jubilee House, the President said throughout the history of Ghana, there has been the creation of new regions and in all those periods, the people affected were those who voted and not the entire area or region in question.

The President called on the chiefs and leaders of the Municipality to assist to bring an end to the agitations.

“This Ghana that we have, we were not always ten (10) regions. Hundred years ago in the colonial period, we were three, the Gold Coast colony, the Ashanti protratiate, and the Northern territories. Subsequently after the First World War when the British took over some of the territories from the Germans in Togo, we then also got Trans Volta Togoland and we became four all the way until the mid-fifties when Eastern Region and Western Region were created out of the Gold Coast Colony so that we became six,” the President observed.