“The president should stay out, let the investigative people determine what happened- Joe Wise

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In his immediate critique of President Akufo-Addo’s State of the Nation Address, Haruna Iddrisu, the Minority Leader of Parliament identified the president’s silence on the persons killed during the 2020 election as a major flaw of the address.

Describing it as ‘conspicuous’, Haruna Iddrisu bemoaned President Akufo-Addo’s failure to capture the death of five people in the elections in the final address of his first term.

“This honourable house thanks the President for the message on the state of the nation…. Mr President, we leave our fractured democracy in your hands. Conspicuously lost in your speech is the loss of lives in Techiman and other parts of Ghana,” the Minority Leader stated.

The same sentiment was expressed by political science lecturer Professor Ransford Gyampo who criticized President Akufo-Addo for ignoring the election-related deaths in his address.

“A speech coming just after our election that witnessed some deaths should have contained some comment about the needless loss of lives, commiseration with the family of the departed, as well as some vow and commitment to resolving infractions of the law, with the view to forestalling the recurrence of such unwarranted deaths in any future elections,” a part of Gyampo’s statement reads.

While the aforementioned political figures shudder to comprehend why President Akufo-Addo will turn a blind eye to an issue of such nature, Joseph Osei Owusu, the First Deputy Speaker has offered a probable cause for the president’s action.

The Bekwai Member of Parliament in an interview with TV3 on the sidelines of the event likened the victims of the Techiman South shooting incident to armed robbers gunned down by the police.

Joe Wise as he is known in the political circles in his justification said the president exercised sound discretion by being silent on the matter.

“The president should stay out, let the investigative people determine what happened but I think it is not fair to insist that because somebody died, even if he was in the process of committing a crime, it becomes an issue, no, I beg to differ.”

“I think it is not fair for people to refer to an event without going back, what happened? Should the president just be talking about if a criminal is shot, the crime does not matter?”, he quizzed.

When asked if it was okay for the President not to send a message of condolence to family of the victim, Joe Wise quizzed “do we commiserate with the families of armed robbers we shoot?”.