Residents of the Guan District in the Oti Region have appealed to the Electoral Commission to begin the process of creating a constituency for the area in earnest.
According to the residents, they feel like orphans as they do not have a representative in Parliament to speak on their behalf and put their numerous challenges before the House.
Addressing the press in Santrokofi, the Kyidomhene of the Santrokofi Traditional Area, Nana Kofi Ollator, implored the EC not to play any gimmicks with the residents as was done in 2020, when the electorates were disenfranchised in the parliamentary elections.
Following the creation of the Oti Region out of the Volta Region in 2018, the Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe and Lolobi Traditional Areas were carved out of the Hohoe Municipality.
The residents were promised to be allocated a district and constituency before the 2020 general elections, which did not materialise.
The government eventually fulfilled its promise and inaugurated the Guan District Assembly in 2021.
Nana Kofi Ollator, said that though the residents are grateful, they believe creating the Guan Constituency will complement the efforts of the Assembly to harness development in the area.
He lamented that they have no channel to communicate their grievances on the development of the area and governance issues since they do not have a representative in Parliament.
“As we sit here, we don’t know what plans the government has, already we have spent two years out of the years and we don’t know our fate for the next two years”, he said.
He said that the political parties have begun preparations for their primaries to elect parliamentary candidates “so that if the green light is given then we can get our representative at the Parliament”.
“We, therefore, crave your indulgence to echo this to the government that once we don’t have our representative at the Parliament, they have disenfranchised us, so they should allow us also to express ourselves by voting.
If in the next two years, we don’t vote and we don’t have our representative in Parliament then I don’t see the need of creating this Guan District”, he stressed.
In a related development, there is uneasy calm in the district, following a recommendation by an ad-hoc committee for Education and Health Directorates to be sited in Lolobi and Santrokofi respectively.
Some youth in Likpe were unhappy with the recommendation and accused the District Chief Executive (MCE), Janet Emefa Obro-Adibo of bias and sabotage.
Nana Kofi, who spoke on behalf of chiefs in Santrokofi, Lolobi and Akpafu, entreated the disgruntled youth to allow the assembly to deliver its mandate.
“The atmosphere of mistrust that has been created because of accusations of wrongdoing levelled against the DCE by the youth of Likpe is making the implementation process cumbersome.
These baseless allegations of bias aimed at sabotaging and undermining the work of the DCE, if allowed to continue would foment disunity and derail our district’s development agenda”, he lamented.
He, therefore, called on traditional authorities in Likpe “to call the youth of Likpe to order” to ensure the sustainability of peace, unity and tranquility among the four traditional areas in the Guan District.
