New Patriotic Party (NPP) Parliamentary candidate for the Dome Kwabenya Constituency, Lawyer Sarah Adwoa Safo, is accusing her competitor on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Josephine Sarah Ackuaku, of having fallen foul of Article 94 (1) (b) of the constitution.
Article 94 (1) (b) states that “Subject to the provisions of this article, a person shall not be qualified to be a Member of Parliament unless he is resident in the Constituency for which he stands as a candidate for election to Parliament or has resided there for a total period of not less than five years”.
The NPP Parliamentary candidate believes her political opponent’s residential status in the constituency is questionable since she has not stayed for a period not less than five years, and has therefore asked her constituents to investigate whether she (Ackuaku) does satisfy the conditions specified by the constitution.
She made the submission when Oman FM’s Have Your Say Campaign Trail touched base with the Dome Kwabenya Constituency. The Have Your Say campaign trail is a platform to give voice to the ordinary Ghanaian to share his or her views on issues affecting his or her life especially in the run up to the 2012 General Elections.
The Dome version which was held at the heart of the Dome market, registered one of the huge turn outs at a political ground.
When given the opportunity to share their views on issues affecting their lives, some of the market women told the charged crowd gathered how disgruntled they were over the hardship situation in the country. According to them, the continuous escalating prices of goods and services were negatively affecting their businesses because “consumers are not buying.”
They further lamented the frequent power outages, continuous increment of school fees and text books, shortage of gas, rate of unemployment, lack of potable water, disruptions in the school feeding programme and gradual fading out of the National Health Insurance Scheme, as negatively affecting and exacerbating standard of living.
The concerns expressed by the traders came on the heels of the Afrobarometer survey by the Center for Democratic Development (CDD, Ghana) of which 63 percent out of the 2,400 respondents said they were not happy with the performance of the economy, with 30 percent describing the situation as very good.
The Afrobarometer is a comprehensive series of public opinion surveys that measure public attitudes towards democracy, governance, the economy, leadership and other related issues.
But the NPP Parliamentary candidate offered a ray of hope to the market women, assuring them that there is light at the end of the tunnel with Nana Akufo Addo as president.
Lawyer Adwoa Safo recounted that “The God that led former President Kufuor to introduce the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the free Maternal Care, School Feeding Programme, NYEP among other things, that same God will lead Nana Addo to implement the free fee-paying SHS education policy.”
She told the women to kick the ruling NDC out of power by voting massively for the presidential aspirant of the elephant family and all its parliamentary aspirants to enable them “fix the broken economy.”
According to her, since the NDC came to power, traders in the Dome market have never known peace and were always facing ejection threat by some individuals and the local assembly of the area.
She said had it not been her interventions, the market would have been taken over by a private entity.
“Ever since the NDC came to power, you have never known peace. They kept hounding you out from this market with armed police men and soldiers. During that time, nobody came to your rescue except Adwoa Safo. This shows that the one who comes to you in times of distress is the one who loves you,” she noted.
Other speakers who addressed the crowd include; Mike Oquaye Jnr, Adomako Baafi, Sheik I.C. Quaye, Ursula Owusu, David Opoku and Michael Nsowa.