The Member of Parliament for Nhyiaeso Constituency, Stephen Amoah has defended the motion filed by the Majority MPs asking Parliament to probe election-related violence since the inception of the Fourth Republic.
Following a motion filed by some four NPP MPs to the Speaker on electoral violence, the Minority side of the House had raised concerns stating that the motion is an attempt to "filibuster" investigations on a motion filed by the Minority itself to investigate violence and subsequent deaths that ensued in the 2020 general election.
According to the Minority Caucus, they would oppose any attempt to create a joint committee to look into the two motions before the Speaker.
But reacting to the statement, Stephen Amoah said it is only appropriate to commence investigations from 1993 and not just a part of the country's whole electoral process.
"We are not saying it is wrong to call for investigations into such an unfortunate incident but we are saying that you cannot take a segment, you have to pick the whole value chain, the whole issue and find out the remote causes and immediate causes," he said.
He told the host of JoyFM's Newsnight, Evans Mensah, that it came as a surprise to him upon hearing the decision taken by the Minority to oppose a joint investigation and the "irrelevant" claim that the Majority's motion is just a ploy to delay investigations.
"I am quite astonished by the way my brothers from the other side are actually putting out their argument. I mean in my opinion, the question they are putting out to me is so irrelevant. There could be a lot of issues in our society that at a point in time we all could raise issues and say this is the time to investigate and this is not the first time…
"What happened in Talensi, Atiwa, Binabe, we raised issues as far back as 'mati me ho' and UP time…this thing has been going on [for long] and not today," he explained.
To buttress his point, he also recounted some causalities that took place under the NDC administration in 2008 and have still not been investigated.
"What happened [in 2008] in Asunafo North or South in Bono Ahafo where we had one pastor called Nyame Kwame [who] was brutally killed. A number of others were tortured so it was under former President Mahama that it happened.
"The three that were involved ran away to Dubai. Remember we found one of them under the bed of Hon Eric Opoku, I didn't want to make these statements because of ethical reasons," he recalled.
According to the Nhyiaeso MP, it took the country about 12 years to identify some vigilante groups including Bolga Bull dogs and Invisible forces who terrorise members of the public during electoral period, therefore, it is needful to address the entire challenge of electoral violence and not just a fraction of it.
"…what happened in Asokwa, Asonafo South? Can you just pick one out of many and investigate? We are saying that it is a good call. We support [it] but let us investigate all incidents that actually prevailed in all these times we had elections and know that If we want to find solutions, we need to do it in such a way that we will have a permanent solution. We are not going to go in and one day, it begins to have subsided performance in terms of the graph of what is happening," he added.
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