Appoint neutral, competent EC chair— Rt Rev. Prof. Sarfo-Kantanka
The Bishop of the Kumasi Diocese of the Methodist Church Ghana, Rt Rev. Prof. Osei Sarfo-Kantanka, has made a passionate appeal to President John Dramani Mahama to ensure that the successor to the outgoing Electoral Commission (EC) chairman will be a person with clear sense of neutrality, integrity and competence.
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He explained that the sensitive nature of the EC chairman position required that the selected person would also be accepted by all because if the succession did not go well the consequences could be disastrous to the entire nation.
Prof. Sarfo-Kantanka was addressing the media after the official opening of the 54th annual synod of the Kumasi Diocese of the Methodist Church in Kumasi. He was preaching on the theme “Leadership Succession”.
He also prayed to God to provide the President with divine wisdom and courage to make a choice that would advance the cause of the nation and not for any “parochial interest”.
Relay race
Prof. Sarfo-Kantanka likened leadership and succession to a relay race and added that if the one handing over the baton did not do it well the entire group would suffer the consequences, while at the same time if the one receiving the baton failed to collect it, the same fate would befall the group.
Nigeria
Using the recent Nigerian example, especially the involvement of high calibre personalities in the elections process, Prof. Sarfo-Kantanka said people with knowledge and skills in the process ought to be recruited to be EC officials and party agents.
This, he said, would prevent the recurrence of the disgraceful things that came out during the 2012 Election Petition at the Supreme Court, where officials and party agents failed to sign documents with others putting down figures that did not match written words.
NPP
In his usual style, Prof. Sarfo-Kantanka waded into politics and blamed the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the current economic and social difficulties that the people of Ghana were experiencing under the Mahama administration.
He was of the strong opinion that if the NPP in 2007 had had a good succession plan and presented two or three persons to contest for one of them to succeed President J.A. Kufuor instead of the 17 persons all staking their claims, Ghana would not have been in its current state.
“We are suffering because the NDC had to start all over again. Kufuor brought NHIS, School Feeding programme. If the NPP had continued they would have moved us far. I am not saying that NPP must be in power forever,” he added.
He said if political parties groomed few people to succeed leaders, the country would benefit from that instead of allowing everyone to participate in the name of democracy.