Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has given a terse admonishing to the Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament never to walk out on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo again.
The Minority, he said, caused a drama in the midst of a serious Parliamentary business that caught the attention of the public.
He cautioned the Minority to avoid such exercise in the future and never to conduct Parliamentary business in a manner that puts the decorum and authority of the House into disrepute.
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Kojo Oppong Nkrumah gave the warning when he moved the motion for the House to thank the President for the Message of the State of the Nation Address (SONA), which he delivered in Parliament on Thursday 20th February 2020.
He argued that President Akufo-Addo appeared before Parliament to fulfill a constitutional obligation in Article 67 and the Minority has a responsibility to sit in and hear him deliver this important message.
The Minority last Thursday pulled a surprise on the entire House when it staged a walk-out just when the President was about to deliver his message.
The action has been described in various terms with some members of the Majority calling on the speaker to prevent the side from participating in the SONA debate.
The side, however, argued it reserved the right to listen to the President and in this case, they have chosen not to because he has turned deaf ears to many concerns of the opposition.
Minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu, stressed that his side walked out to mourn the threat to democracy by the Akufo-Addo regime.
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The opposition, he said, will not show apathy to threat to democracy and stressed if the President continues to turn deaf ears to his opponents, the Minority also reserves the right not to listen to his delivery.
Mr. Haruna Iddrisu observed that the Akufo-Addo government is executing an elaborate agenda to weaken the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in a clandestine plot to make Ghana a one-party state.
According to him, the President has conducted the affairs of state with the kind of tyranny, despotism, and authoritarianism that frighten many objective observers since taking over the reins of power.
“The democracy we all toiled and sacrificed to establish is now threatened by the highhandedness of President Akufo-Addo.”
“The man who in opposition styled himself as a champion democrat has turned out to be a nightmare and an existential threat to our fledgling democracy,” he said.
