NPP is “shutting the door after the horse has bolted" – Wereko Brobbey

Former boss of Volta River Authority (VRA), Dr. Charles Wereko Brobbey, has described the ongoing election petition filed in the Supreme Court by three leading members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), as "tantamount to shutting the stable door after the prized horse has bolted".

He made this submission on the maiden edition of "Tarzan's Take" on Multi TV last Sunday.

Dr. Brobbey, who is also Chief Policy Analyst of the Ghana Institute of Public Policy Options added that, the governance of our nation is “in animated suspension” because our leaders have chosen to put their partisan interests ahead of the common good.

To Tarzan, as he is popularly known, the election petition in court was a case of déjà vu. He recalled the Amoo experience in 1996 and said it should have served as a guide to prevent us from being in this murky situation.

In 1996, Mr Isaac Amoo, candidate of the NPP challenged the Electoral Commission's declaration of his opponent, Mrs Rebecca Adotey, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate as winner of the votes for Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency in the Greater Accra Region.

In consonance with the law then and still in place now, the disputed winner, Rebecca Adotey took her seat in parliament during the hearing of the petition.

Unfortunately, it took nearly four years for the courts to uphold Isaac Amoo's petition, by which time the Parliament that he should have been a member of, had only one more week of its tenure left before it was dissolved.

The'take it or leave it' referendum on the 1992 constitution was in Dr. Brobbey's view responsible for the current quagmire because it did not offer Ghanaians the opportunity to express their likes and dislikes about it.

Tarzan suggested that Ghana could learn from Kenya where thorough constitutional and electoral reviews have been made out of their bitter political experience over the last five years.