Akufo-Addo has instructed CJ to look into petition against EC boss – Barker-Vormawor

President petitioned to remove Jean Mensa

People of SALL without parliamentary representation in 8th Parliament of Ghana

The office of the president and the office of the Chief Justice are said to have stated that they have received a petition for the removal of the chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Jean Mensa, and her deputies.

The leadership of pressure group #FixTheCountry petitioned the office of the president to cause the removal of the Electoral Commissioner and her deputies for failing to oversee a parliamentary election for the people of Santrofi, Akpafu, Likpe and Lolobi (SALL).

In a Facebook post sighted by GhanaWeb, the lead petitioner, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, stated that the president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has communicated his instructions to the Chief Justice to commence impeachment processes against the EC officials in a correspondence.

“Earlier today, 18 January 2022, we the 46 Ghanaians who petitioned the Chief Justice, through the President, initiating processes for the impeachment of the Chair and Deputies of the Electoral Commission in the connection of the disenfranchisement of the people of Santrokofi, Lolobi, Akpafu and Likpe, received responding letters from the Offices of the President and of the Chief Justice.

“Through his letter, the President has acknowledged receipt of the petition and confirmed that it has forwarded the Petition to the Chief Justice to commence the process for impeaching the impugned officers of the Electoral Commission,” he stated in the post.

“For his part, the Chief Justice in his letter, informed the petitioners that he has initiated the impeachment process and has accordingly informed the impugned officers of the Electoral Commission of this step,” he further stated.

The petition for the removal of the Electoral Commission according to petitioners is grounded in Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution.

The SALL Constituency was created ahead of the 2020 general elections by the Electoral Commission. However, on the eve of the election, the EC announced that the people of SALL will be exempted from the parliamentary elections.

The people of SALL were allowed to vote in the presidential election but to many including the petitioners, the development is a clear violation of the rights of the people of SALL.

“Our decision to seek the removal of the EC is based on our belief that the fact of the disenfranchisement, as well as the indolence of the Electoral Commission(EC) in taking steps to remedy this constitutional breach in itself, rises to the threshold of stated misbehaviour and incompetence that Article 146 requires for the removal of officers of the Electoral Commission.

“It’s our hope that if the President receives this that they treat this with dispatch as it has done previously and that he submits this to the Chief Justice who must then go on and perform the constitutional duty of determining whether or not the fact as we would lay them out amounts to a prima facie case for the impeachment of the officers so named in the petition,” Oliver-Vormawor stated during a media address after the petition was filed at the Presidency.

In his post announcing the new development, the lead petitioner stated that the group of 26 petitioners and their lawyers are fully prepared and are looking for to appear before the committee that will oversee the impeachment.