The Member of Parliament for Madina, Francis Xavier-Sosu, says leading his constituents to embark on a protest over the deplorable roads in his constituency is his parliamentary duty.

Speaking on Joy FM's Midday News, he said he was discharging his parliamentary duty when he led the angry youth to protest, adding that it is a constitutional duty to demonstrate.

“It is my parliamentary duty. What is my Parliamentary duty? I am supposed to represent the people; I am the voice of the people, the pain of the people is my pain, and the worry of the people is my worry,” he said.

On Monday, the angry residents clad in red and black and led by the MP of Madina, Mr Sosu, chanted as they marched through the various streets in the constituency to protest what they describe as poor road infrastructure and lack of proper drainage leading to flooding in the area.

According to the MP, the protest was to force the relevant authorities to fix roads in the constituency quickly.

Scores of the protesters blocked portions of the Ayi Mensah-Danfa Road by burning tyres and preventing the free flow of traffic.

It took police intervention to clear the road, but the angry residents say they'll return to the streets if the roads are not fixed.

But the legislator stated that there was nothing unlawful with the protest the constituents of Madina embarked on because the modalities for protest under the Public Order Act was followed.

According to him, the police acted lawlessly in their attempts to have him arrested for leading a lawful protest.

“If anybody acted unlawfully, then it was the police because at the time that the protest was coming to an end, they served notice of an intention to arrest me, and I said why would you arrest me for leading a lawful protest? And this protest, we have written to you, you agreed with us with the time, and we gladly obliged and changed the time from last Monday to today, so why would you want to arrest me?

“So I told them in any event, the constitution is very clear when a Member of Parliament is doing his duty as a Member of Parliament you cannot arrest him. If you want to arrest me, write to the Speaker of Parliament. So why did the police want to act flawlessly, and how would you arrest me in the presence of the teeming shoot who have come together to demonstrate,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of La Nkwantanag, Jennifer Dede Adjabeng, has described the protest over the bad nature of roads as needless.

According to her, the roads have been awarded a contract in November 2020 to be worked on; therefore, the exercise led by the MP was uncalled for.

“It is a very needless protest...if you are trying to get government’s attention, there are a lot of roads that could get central governments attention by not protesting. And in this particular case, it is a road that has been awarded on contract but with challenges that the contractor is facing, has not been able to do much work,” she stated.