The Chairman of NDC Council of Elders in South Africa, Mr. Benjamin Kofi Quashie has issued a stern warning to the Member of Parliament for Abetifi constituency, Bryan Acheampong, against any attempt to subvert the will of Ghanaians in the December general elections.
According to Mr. Quashie, the consequence would be death should Mr. Acheampong try to carry through his rhetoric that the NPP will not to hand over power if former president John Mahama is declared winner of the forthcoming polls.
Speaking to Ghasa Radio in South Africa on Tuesday, the Chairman of NDC Council of Elders said the party is not “worried” by such vituperations because the 1992 constitution of Ghana has a cure for any such “mischief”.
Addressing a health walk organised by the NPP in the Eastern Region over the weekend, Bryan Acheampong who is the Minister for Food and Agriculture reiterated an assertion he made last year that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) would not relinquish power to the NDC.
“Last year I stood here in Mpraeso and said that whether NDC likes it or not they will never win the December 7 polls and therefore the NPP will not hand over power to them because they cannot win the elections. If you cannot win elections why do you want power to be given to you at all cost?”
Though he tried to contextualize last year’s comment, the minister has roundly been condemned by security analysts and members of opposition parties.
“The constitution that guides all of us as Ghanaians says that anybody who tries to overthrow the constitution has committed a treasonable offence…and the constitution says that anyone who commits treasonable offence is punishable by death. I’m not saying it, it is the constitution that is saying it,” Benjamin Quashie pointed out.
“Bryan Acheampong as a Minister and an MP knows that the constitution rides supreme, and he passes such treasonable comments, then he knows that the consequences would be death.
“I am not going to tell who is going to give him that punishment of death, but I can assure him that when the elections results are out and president Mahama and the NDC are declared as victors, he will run, he will run and ensure that the right things are done for president John Mahama to be inaugurated as the president of the republic.”
He has therefore dared Mr. Acheampong who is a former Deputy Minister for National Security to wait until the elections are over to see if he would hand over power or not.
“I can tell you that these are people clutching at straws because they have seen that they are going into opposition,” he observed, “it is not easy losing an election as incumbent”.
For him, the likes of Bryan and Lord Commey, the Director of Operations at the presidency, who make such comments are only “poking fun at themselves, it is not going to happened”.
“If he wants to take away the will of the people, then the constitution will cure that mischief”, Mr. Quashie stressed, adding that the failure of the security agencies and the courts to act on such comments from persons in government is a “dent on our democracy”, which “sadly” portrays the country as a “banana republic”.
Assessing that “as a country we have retrogressed in every department of our growth”, he seized the opportunity to canvass for votes for the NDC flagbearer John Mahama, under whose leadership he said justice would not be for a select few because the courts would be empowered to uphold the constitution.