Chairman of the National Peace Council, Most Rev Emmanuel Fianu has said the petition to remove the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa and her deputies promotes the perception of partisanship of the Office.
In an interview on TV3’s Hot Issues, Sunday, November 30, he noted that it’s rather unfortunate that a similar path used to remove the former EC Chair, Charlotte Osei has been revisited.
The Catholic cleric believes that should the petition seal through and Jean Mensa is removed from office, the idea of the EC office being politicized is enforced.
To him, this does not augur well for Ghana’s democracy.
“That is the unfortunate path that should this happen, then we are still going in a partisan way. They may have faulted in one or the other way but if we go into this system of every four or eight years changing the Electoral Commission especially when it is a different political party in power, then we enforce this impression of partisanship even for these officers and that could not be good for our democracy,” he stated.
Answering the question about whether the EC Chair must be removed, he said “it depends on the President because it is to him that they have presented the petition, he should study it together with the Council of State to see what is the best thing to do because if we continue to create a situation where people suspect that there are partisan inclinations, it will not be good for the country.”
To the petitioner who happens to be a EC staff, Most Rev Emmanuel Fianu questioned his morals for demanding the removal of the EC Chair on grounds of incompetence when he did nothing to ensure things were right.
“There is also co-responsibility. If you are a staff and something is not going well, what did you do to correct it or to make your leaders aware.
“I think it will not be good just to sit and say let me wait then I can put in a complain or a petition. We should be one another’s keeper and we should learn to work, collaborate as a team,” he added.
Meanwhile, President John Dramani Mahama has received 10 petitions to remove the head of the Electoral Commission (EC) and her two deputies all appointed under Article 70 of the 1992 Constitution.
The petitions are also seeking the removal of the Special Prosecutor, William Kissi Agyebeng.
Out of the ten petitions, seven were against the EC Chair, Jean Adukwei Mensa, and her two deputies, Dr. Eric Bossman Asare, who is in charge of Corporate, and Samuel Tettey, in charge of Operations.
Three other petitions are against the removal of the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng.
The Minister in Charge of Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, who confirmed the petitions said they have been forwarded to the Chief Justice, Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, who is expected to act on them in accordance with the laws of the land.
“Yes. The President has forwarded the petitions…the Chief Justice will accordingly act in accordance with Ghanaian law,” he said on Accra-based Joy FM on Monday, December 1, 2025.
Source: 3news.com By Raphael Ghartey
