TB Joshua Ain't In Our Camp…We Don’t Use “Spiritual Means” To Campaign – Asiedu Nketia

General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has dismissed reports that the ruling party has employed the services of renowned Man of God Temitope Balogun Joshua, commonly referred to as T. B. Joshua and any other prophets to assist them win the December 7 elections.

He was emphatic that – “We the NDC don’t use spiritual means to win elections when our manifesto can speak for itself”.

He was however quick to add that – “We have all kinds of believers in our party who can back the party spiritually but leadership of the party has not employed any individual to assist us win this elections in that regard.”

Speaking on NEAT FM’s morning show ‘Ghana Montie’, Asiedu Nketiah popularly known as ‘General Mosquito’ noted that claims by controversial man of God, Rev Owusu Bempah that TB Joshua is in Ghana to offer spiritual guidance for the incumbent government is “rubbish”.

He also questioned Rev Owusu Bempah’s credibility as a “real” man of God – “I don’t know where he [Rev. Owusu Bempah] is coming from”.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Pastor, Televangelist and Philanthropist on his official facebook Page denied claims he is in Ghana: “There are rumors on the internet stating that T.B. Joshua is in Ghana to offer spiritual guidance to political parties. Please know that these rumors are 100% false. T.B. Joshua is not in Ghana, he is in Nigeria. Do not listen to the father of lies”.

He reportedly described Founder and leader of the Glorious Word Power Ministry International Rev. Isaac Owusu-Bempah as a “father of lies”.

EC Boss Charlotte Osei Speaks With The BBC

EC Boss Charlotte Osei has expressed satisfaction with the decision of the Progressive People’s party and the other parties disqualified from competing in this year’s polls by the electoral body to take them to court.

Mrs Osei and her organisation disqualified  12 aspirants from standing in the polls – including Papa Kwesi Nduom, Nana Konadu Agyyemang Rawlings and Hassan Ayariga – and by and large most of them have sent the body to court.

Speaking with the BBC’s Akwasi Sarpong on the events, Charlotte said she was glad the parties took them to court rather than taking to the streets to cause commotion.

She also revealed that the EC has started printing out Parliamentary ballot papers, but the Presidential ones are being held up due to the numerous court cases.

“Does Mahama Understand Democracy?” Akufo-Addo Asks

The 2016 presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, says recent utterances by President Mahama, coupled with his actions and inactions over the last 8 years, point to a President who has appears to have little understanding of democracy.

According to him, President Mahama's comments on Tuesday, November 1, whilst campaign in Abirem, in the Eastern Region, where he warned Ghanaians against continually changing incumbent governments to try new ones, saying such a situation stalls development, was truly unfortunate.

"If changing governments was bad, why did he and his party agitate for the changing of the NPP government in 2008? Changing governments was good for him in 2008, but when the time has come for Ghanaians to change governments in 2016, it's now a bad thing", Akufo-Addo said

He continued, "I get sad listening to the President sometimes. It is heart wrenching hearing some of the comments he makes. Does he understand the tenets of democracy? If he understood democracy, he wouldn't be saying some of the things he says".

Nana Akufo-Addo was addressing residents of Denkyira Obuasi, in the Upper Denkyira West constituency, in the Central Region, on Wednesday, November 2, 2016, when he made these remarks.

The NPP flagbearer explained that it was for a good reason why Ghana's Constitution directed that elections be held every 4 years.

I’ll Solve Psychiatric Hosp. Issues - Prez Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama has promised to address concerns of nurses at the Accra Psychiatric hospital. The nurses are currently on a strike over their concerns.

“We will take immediate steps to resolve the issues at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital. ...I will talk to the Health Minister to understand what the issues are so they are resolved,” Mr Mahama assured the nurses during an interview on Uniiq FM.

There was no single nurse at post at the Accra psychiatric hospital on Monday October 31 as the nurses begun a full-blown strike to demand sufficient essential medications required for psychiatric management and treatment of patients.

The nurses stayed off the premises because most patients, according to them, continued to demonstrate aggressive behaviours towards staff and other patients, a situation they described as dangerous.

The nurses said they are putting their safety above everything else because they have continually suffered assault and injury from inmates.

Speaking to Class91.3FM on Monday October 31, spokesperson of the hospital, Philip Frimpong Okyere said they will wait outside the hospital until the inmates are provided with medication.

“The situation at the hospital as I speak to you now is very dangerous for us to move in there because the medications and other logistics that we need to manage the psychiatric patients are not there and in the absence of these medication most of the patients relapse and then many of them become aggressive almost at the same time and then the consequence of this thing is that they end up assaulting and attacking our staff resulting in varying degrees of injuries,” he stated.

“What is even prompting us to take this measure is because we have informed the authorities involved and their argument is that they are financial constraints so we will wait outside the hospital premises until such a time where they will call us and tell us the things we need are available then we will go back. There is no single nurse at post at the Accra psychiatric hospital. We don’t have gloves, we don’t have syringes so in the event that you want to give somebody injection, you have to do it with your bare hands,” Mr Okyere complained.

“If a patient becomes aggressive and we get hold of him, the next line of action is to administer the injection so that it will calm the person down so if you restrain the person and don’t have access to this medication, whatever you do is useless meaning you are always in a constant struggle with the patient”.

Source: Classfmonline

I’ll Solve Psychiatric Hosp. Issues - Prez Mahama

Psychiatric Nurses To Gov't: We Run The Mental Home With Our 'Susu' Money

Nurses at the Accra Psychiatric hospital have embarked on an industrial action following the hazardous conditions under which they work.

Two weeks before embarking on the action, the nurses served authorities with a notice detailing their intended action which was begun with full force on Monday, October 31, 2016.

In an interview with one of the aggrieved nurses Jamilatu Hussen on Peace fm, she noted that their strike action has nothing to do with unpaid salaries but rather, the poor prevailing conditions under which trained metal health nurses work.

According to her, nurses at the Accra Psychiatric hospital were inadequately supplied with drugs for mentally deranged patients, logistics and hospital consumables.

The poor condition, according to her, had made their job uncomfortable to an extent that they “often do not have gloves to wear to clean the excreta of the patients.”

“We are professional nurses with degrees and diplomas but we do not have basic items like gloves and bedspread to cater for the patients. Such impediment has put our lives at risk”.

As trained nurses expected to keep records of patents on daily basis, Jamilatu Hussen claims they are not even supplied with pens and notebooks to keep and write situational reports.

“We can write a request that we need 5 pens for the month but it comes as luck to be given just one. All they tell us is that they don’t have enough pens and incase one is fortunate to get two pens, then it means other wards wouldn’t get pens to write with”, she said.

Dealing with patients with psychological issues involve keeping the environment clean but from the accounts of Jamilatu, both nurses and patients at the Accra Psychiatric hospital live in an untidy environment where acquiring detergents to sanitize the place is hard to come by.

“Even plasters to dress sores with, we don’t have…We don’t have medicines for our patients and we need to sanitize our environment but we don’t have detergents”, she said.

The rot at the home has reached a level where nurses have to personally contribute monies in the form of “susu” according to Jamilatu before they can run the home and when “we told our head about the situation, she told us government doesn’t have money to cater for us”.

In a related development, President John Dramani Mahama has indicated that he is unaware of the strike action being embarked on by the nurses of the Accra Psychiatric hospital.

Bawumia's Wife Is Ghana’s Michelle Obama...

The head of the Political Communications Department of the University of Cape Coast, Dr Eric Opoku Mensah, has heaped praises on the wife of New Patriotic Party (NPP) vice-presidential candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, for her role in the campaign of the party ahead of polls in December.

According to Dr Mensah, it would not be far-fetched to refer to Mrs Samira Bawumia as Ghana’s version of Michelle Obama, wife of the president of the United States of America.

Mrs Bawumia has been touring the country preaching the message of change to the electorate.

In his assessment of Mrs Bawumia’s role in the NPP campaign, Dr Mensah told Class News’ Naa Deedei Tettey on Thursday October 27 that she had developed into a great asset for the NPP and had the ability to make political gains for her party and its candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

“So far as the NPP’s campaign is concerned, I think that she’s been quite articulate, and if you want to say Ghana’s version of Michelle Obama, you might be right to some extent. She has grown over the period. Her husband, Dr Bawumia, has grown tremendously in terms of his stature and he’s come along with wife Samira. I think she brings a lot of credibility to Nana Akufo-Addo’s ticket, particularly being a Muslim woman. I think that she has a great potential of connecting with the teeming masses, especially in the Zongos,” he stated.

“She has the potential of easily connecting with the ordinary people because they look up to her as one of their own. She comes from the north and secondly she is a Muslim, and I think that if she continues this way, she brings a lot of political capital to the NPP and I think it will only be to the advantage of the NPP.”

He continued: “This is something I haven’t seen on the other side, particularly in the NDC, and it adds a lot to the ticket of Nana Akufo-Addo. …She has age on her side, she is young, she is energetic, and this is the time she can do a lot more and I’m not surprised at what she is doing. …This is not a competition between her and Nana Akufo-Addo’s wife, but she is young and she has all the zeal and energy. When you look at the other side, sometimes, you will find the First Lady going on her own trips, but most at times what is visible to me is not more of her oratory [skills] but sharing [of] gifts, but Samira has really shown the difference by her ability to articulate clearly her message.”

OFFICIAL....EC Runs To Supreme Court; To Seek Clarity & Quash Nduom's Ruling

The Electoral Commission has filed an appeal to challenge the High Court ruling asking it to allow the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) to correct their nomination form errors that accounted for the disqualification of the party's candidate from the presidential race.

The election management body is invoking the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in their appeal.

An Accra High Court last week directed the EC of Ghana to make way for Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom to correct anomalies cited on his nomination form.

The court presided over by His Lordship Kyei Baffuor, said the EC breached the law of natural justice in disqualifying the PPP flagbearer from the race, and, therefore, asked the election management body to allow him to make the necessary corrections on his nomination forms.

Dr Nduom, according to the EC, was disqualified because “the number of subscribers to his forms did not meet the requirements of Regulation 7 (2) (b) of CI 94".

The PPP then filed a lawsuit seeking to restrain the EC from proceeding with the balloting for positions of presidential candidates.

But on Friday, October 28th, the presiding judge sitting at the Commercial Court 7, made it clear that the EC should have given Dr Nduom an opportunity to correct anomalies on his nomination form before disqualifying him.

"I will proceed after quashing the decision of the Respondents disqualifying the Applicant as a candidate and order that the Respondents afford opportunity to the Applicant to make the necessary alteration or amendment to its nomination paper for it to receive same and then proceed to determine whether the Applicant had met all the criteria laid down by the laws of the Republic, in line with its duty laid down by C.I. 94. EC has no basis to complain that nomination period has closed when they did not set one. They only set nomination day under regulation 7 but not nomination period under regulation 9(2) as I have already found. The time frame to afford the Applicant is entirely within the discretion of the Respondents being mindful of the limited time available for the elections on December 7, 2016," Justice Eric K. Baffour, Esq ruled.

However, barely a week after the landmark ruling, the EC says it is heeding to the Supreme Court for clarity and possible quashing of the ruling.

In a statement issued today and copied Peacefmonline.com, the EC indicated that "having carefully studied the contents of the judgment, we respectfully disagree with the High Court judge’s decision on several essential legal and public policy grounds".


Read EC's statement below....


REVIEW OF HIGH COURT DECISION

The Electoral Commission has completed a review of the judgment of the High Court, Accra dated 28th October, 2016 in the case of the Republic v Mrs. Charlotte Osei & Electoral Commission; Ex parte Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, numbered GT1401/2016.

Having carefully studied the contents of the judgment, we respectfully disagree with the High Court judge’s decision on several essential legal and public policy grounds.

The Commission is of the firm conviction backed by the law, that candidates seeking the highest office of the land, must take full responsibility for ensuring that their nomination forms meet the standard in form and substance, required by the law.

The Commission is further of the view that falsified signatures on nomination forms constitute a matter for criminal investigation and are not mere anomalies or clerical errors, which should be pointed out to candidates for corrections to be effected.

The Commision believes that, as in other jurisdictions, presidential candidates must ensure the accuracy of the information on documents which they present under oath to public institutions. Failure to place this burden on the shoulders of the candidates, has serious implications for our democratic growth and electoral justice.

In the interest of public policy and the credibility of the electoral process, the Commission has today filed an application at the Supreme Court to quash the High Court decision and seek clarity on the relevant aspects of the law on candidate nominations.

We believe it is in the overall national interest and on the grounds of public policy that the Supreme Court provides clarity on this matter. A judgment from the Apex Court would effectively bring finality to the issue once and for all.

In the interest of national peace and cohesion, we respectfully implore the Highest Court of the land to determine our application expeditiously in accordance with the earlier directive of Her Ladyship the Chief Justice and for the sake of the electoral calendar.

Thank you.



Signed:

ERIC KOFI DZAKPASU

Head of Communications

Email: mediaoffice@ec.gov.gh