Residents chase away EC officials

The people of Akpafu-Adomi, a community within the Hohoe Municipality in the Volta Region, have no intention of joining the Oti Region, though they have been earmarked to be part of the new region.

The community denied the Electoral Commission (EC) the opportunity to exhibit its voters’ register in the area.

The District Director of the EC, Kwabena Kankam, told journalists last week Friday that the EC had to withdraw its personnel after they were threatened.

The Assembly member for Akpafu Adomi, John Kwame Obimpe, confirmed that the community did indeed chase away the EC personnel.

He explained that the chiefs have never been in favour of joining the new region if it meant being separated from the Hohoe municipality.

“We are not ready to be cut off from Hohoe. We want to be where Hohoe is. So if Hohoe will move to Oti, we the Akpafu and Lolobi will be ready to move Oti. Without Hohoe, we are not ready to join any region or any district.”

Mr Obimpe stressed that his people will “again sack them (EC personnel)” if they attempt to continue with the exhibition.

The community also vowed not to even engage with the Justice Brobbey Commission during the consultations.

“The Akpafu chiefs met and said we did not petition so we are not going to attend any of the engagements so nobody should go and represent us anywhere,” Mr. Obimpe warned.

On the way forward, he said if their attempts to get the Presidency’s attention fail, they will resort to the courts.

“When they went to the EC in Accra, they said they should book to go and see the President himself; so that is the next step… if all means fail then the final one, we will go to court for the court to place an injunction.”

These tensions come as the President of the National House of Chiefs, Togbe Afede XIV, insisted that the processes for the creation of new regions were not exhaustive enough.

He said not enough dissenting views were heard by the commission.

“A full inquiry, I believe, would involve talking to even those who are against the process, but [the commission] limited all the public hearings to the very areas where they said they had received petitions from,” Togbe Afede also said.

The chief’s recent comments follow petitions he received from the chiefs of Lolobi and Akpafu in the Volta Region who have sworn never to join the new Oti Region.