General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association is calling for the prosecution of persons involved in the installation of a chief, at Akuapem in the Eastern Region.

According to Dr Justice Yankson, the gathering held to celebrate the installation, flouts the ban on public gatherings by the President, through an Executive Instrument, to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

From the traditional leaders to the police who received the order to provide security, all of them should be taken through due process and handed the needed punishments to serve as a deterrent, he said on JoyNews' Newsfile, Saturday.

“The very influential people should be brought to book for all of us to learn from, because, we cannot continue this way. People feel that life is okay with us but this is the traditional authority, we expect that they would also be showing leadership.

“They should be taken through the due process and where they have been found to have formally breached the rules, the exact punishment as spelt out, if probably, the maximum should be given out,” he told Samson Lardi Anyenini, host of the show.

Kingmakers of Akuapem initiated customary rites to install a new Akuapemhene amidst heavy security on May 1, 2020.

The installation comes shortly after the Judicial Committee of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs nullified the installation of one Odehye Kwasi Akuffu as the Akuapemhene and directed that, he cannot hold himself as same.

A brief customary rite was observed to announced to the people of Akuapem that Odehye Kwadwo Kesse has been chosen as Akuapemhene.

Dr Yankson stated that many of the coronavirus cases in Ghana are asymptomatic - people have Covid-19 but are not showing symptoms of illness.

Hence, if some of the people in the crowd have the virus without any obvious symptoms, everyone else, including the law enforcers and the traditional leaders, have all been exposed, he stated.

He added that only about 10% of the people (in the video) were seen with masks, heightening the risk of both infection and spread.

“We cannot allow things of this nature to happen when we are all trying to fight a common enemy,” he added.

Dr Yankson urged government to revise the approach to social distancing by doing an assessment of the situation and adding enforcement measures to ensure the directives are followed.

“We should involve the security agencies, to ensure that people adhere to these measures and to an extent, start bringing in the courts so that people can start facing some of the penalties as spelt out in the law,” he added.