6 MPs initiate motion to investigate 2020 election violence

Six minority Members of Parliament (MPs) have initiated a private members’ motion for Parliament to investigate acts of violence that occurred in the 2020 general election.

They want the House to probe inappropriate interferences by some members of the state security which led to injuries and the loss of seven lives during the presidential and parliamentary polls.

The lawmakers are the Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu; the MP for Asawase, Alhaji Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka; the MP for Bawku Central, Mr Mahama Ayariga; the MP for North Tongu, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa; the MP for Tamale North, Mr Suhuyini Alhassan Sayibu, and the MP for Builsa North, Mr James Agalga.

Victims of polls

The motion, which is yet to be moved, identified the seven persons who lost their lives as Tajudeen Alhassan (39 years), Abdallah Ayaric (18), Emmanuel Dompreh (36), Samira Zakaria (36), Ibrahim Abass (30), Rita Otoo (15) and Fuseini Musah (14).

According to the police, there were 61 recorded cases of electoral and post-electoral violence across the country.

It indicated that 21 of the incidents were true cases of electoral violence, six of which involved gunshots.

Call for probe

Earlier on March 15, this year, some MPs called for the setting up of a commission of enquiry to probe electoral violence in Ghana so as to help bring justice to those who have suffered excesses from the security agencies.

They said the commission would help determine those who perpetrated violence against Ghanaians and to ensure that they were punished to serve as deterrent to others.

While Majority MPs requested for the scope of the probe to begin from electoral violence from 1992 till date, Minority MPs suggested the focus of enquiries to be limited to the 2020 general election in which they said some seven people were shot dead through excesses by the security agencies.

CODEO

In its final report on the 2020 elections, the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODE0) called on the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and the Ghana Police Service to inform Ghanaians about the status of the investigations on all incidents of electoral violence that took place during the 2020 elections.

It reminded the Inspector General of Police (IGP) that he owed the Ghanaian public a duty to provide such information, which would bolster public confidence in the criminal justice system, pointing out that “it will be a huge disappointment if the IGP and the Police Service fail to live up to expectation.”

Recruitments

In a related development, the six MPs also want the House to investigate the recruitment practices of state security agencies between the period 2017 and 2020, and to establish the levels of transparency and fairness of those practices and make consequential recommendations.