Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has expressed worry over some Members of Parliament of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) whose demise have not seen any progress in their investigations.
According to the NDC Chair, “the country is degenerating into a situation where people can kill for power and get away with it”, a situation he says is showing the alarming trend waging into Ghanaian political arena.
His comments come on the back of three Members of Parliament belonging to the NPP who died whilst in office, with two of them being murder and another suspected to be poisoning, without any success in investigating their deaths.
Citing the cases of J.B. Danquah Adu, Ekow Quansah Hayford, and John Kumah, Mr. Asiedu Nketia indicates that all said MPs died under mysterious circumstances, adding that the only thing the government of the day was able to do was to ask their wives to take their positions in Parliament.
He is surprised as to why up until now, nobody has been arrested over John Kumah’s death despite allegations of food poisoning emanating from various sources with others indicating their readiness to testify.
“We have J.B. Danquah Adu (MP for Abuakwa North) who was stabbed to death in his bedroom. Then Ekow Quansah Hayford (MP for Mfantseman) was shot on a highway. All we heard of his matter was that his wife should take his place. And this current one, John Kumah (MP for Ejisu). After his death, we’ve had someone go on a TV station claiming that he was poisoned. This individual mentioned the name of the hotel where he ate the food and the person who served the food and bragged that he was available to testify to all the claims he was making.
“This individual is walking, nothing has happened, no hotel manager has been apprehended and NPP is approaching this as if they are just filling the vacancy and nothing else,” he said on Accra-based JoyNews Wednesday, April 10, 2024.
For their failure to find closure to the cases by arresting the perpetrators, Mr. Asiedu Nketia lashed out on the appropriate authorities for their slow pace in fishing out the perpetrators of the act, and called for urgent action from the police and demanded transparency in the investigation process.
The NDC Chairman called on the police to address the nation and provide updates on the progress of the investigations into these deaths. He also urged the government to prioritise the safety of elected officials and ensure that such heinous crimes do not go unpunished.
“This is a critical issue, the police should be addressing the nation, as to the steps they are taking. We haven’t heard anything so far. We haven’t heard anything about how they are proceeding to find the killers of the Mfantseman MP. For J.B. Danquah Adu’s case, the state withdrew the case and there was a public outcry they claimed they were investigating the issue, at some point they said the laptop of the doctor who carried out the post-mortem had been stolen, such cock and bull stories. About three MPs have been killed and all that we hear is that their wives have been rehabilitated into Parliament to replace their husbands. Is that where our democracy is moving?” he quizzed.
J.B Danquah did not propose the name ‘Ghana’ – Asiedu Nketia
