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It is a maximal custard – pie behavior for the NDC kingpins escorted by John Mahama and Asiedu Nketiah to structure their de trop political crusades to pummeling the incumbent NPP government pioneered by Nana Akufo Addo and Dr Bawumia for the ostracism of “SALL” from parliamentary simulacrum. It is eerie whether the NDC platoons are short of appreciating a circumstance or they are inclined to jobbing their own precocity ; their bush telegraphs aren’t nothing over and above.
In the 1969 and 1979 Constitutions, the EC had the leeway to mould both districts and constituencies with the offices of two ad hoc delimitation commissions. Under the 1992 constitution, three public institutions have
constitutional and statutory decrees over the creation of both districts and constituencies. These are Parliament, the Presidency and the Electoral Commission. There are also yawning chasms among the aforesaid three institutions at this point. The presidency and parliament are not the prime players in the creation of new constituencies _ they are just flunkeys and tools for the Electoral Commission in this regard. Both the presidency and parliament are devoted to constitutionally plug the inauguration of districts, regions instead.
Now, here is an impregnable substantiating points to the above – assertion :
The constitution invests the president with the property to erect districts but the procedure and criteria for their incipience are spelt out in the Local Government Act of 2004 (Act 462). Also, Article 4(2) of the 1992 constitution untangles that: “Parliament may by law make provision for the redrawing of the boundaries of districts or for reconstituting the districts “. This doesn’t give a paradigm of apologia solely, but it foregrounds the constitutional pedagogy, frameworks and paramountcies for each of the underscored bodies. The president cannot intrude into any avenue, illustrating electoral affairs and processes – it is rather, an incumbent on the Electoral Commission to set – up the tone, supposedly that place idolizes their various canons.
Article 47 (1) of the 1992 constitution accentuates, inter alia that, ” the Electoral Commission may prescribe ” – the word ” prescribe ” in the previously stated phrase intimates that, it is within their legal volition and mantle to earmark a specified locus as a constituency without being under a cosh from any panjandrum. Which is why, Dr. Afari Gyan led the creation of supplemental 45 Constituencies in 2012 as the Electoral Commissioner. Moreover, Article 43 (b) of the 1992 constitution reaffirms the weight of the electoral commission being the singular institution to fashion the creation of constituency (ies). The constitution stipulates the criteria for the establishment of constituencies and mandates the electoral Commission to (Ghana 1992a): “review the division of Ghana into constituencies at intervals of not less than seven years, or within twelve months after the publication of the numeration figures after the holding of a census of the population of Ghana, whichever is earlier, and may, as a result, alter the constituencies”.
With the inveterate theme of the Guan Constituency, which has made John Mahama, Asiedu Nketiah and their ilks politicized it in their political drives in order to covet for political percentage – the Legislative Instrument (L.I 2416), which created that Constituency couldn’t mature at the opportune time, such that, it was presented in Parliament on the 6th October, 2020 and it riped (matured) on the 9th November, 2020, barely a month to the general election then. More markedly, for a C. I to mature and come into force, the law necessitates the Electoral Commission to pop the C. I in Parliament in twenty – one sitting days.
This drives at that, Parliament should be in diet during the 21 – day whereas the C. I is being laid. By that time, parliament had gone on hiccup on that same day, in which the legislative instrument had matured and was scheduled to recommence a week later after the general election. With parliament on hiatus, the commission couldn’t station the C. I to effectuate the emergence of the Guan Constituency as required by the law. And mind you, parliament doesn’t pass a Constitutional Instrument (C. I), they only come into force with the effluxion of time ; that’s, after 21 – day of the instrument being laid in the house.
This is why the Guan Constituency doesn’t have a surrogate in parliament as of now. As stated initially, no president can barricade the construction of new Constituency (ies) – it’s however, the sole obligation of the Electoral Commission, although the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development shall initiate the process. Regardless, the Electoral Commission has the ultimate legal muscle to either embrace that proposition or freeze it off.
By : Prof. Dinkum.
(The Buzzing Rapine of Erudition)
E – mail : dinkumchoice@gmail.com
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