MP for North Tongu and Ranking Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has expressed concern over the latest 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices published by the US Department of State.
According to him, the international community is deeply worried about the unresolved killings and alarming levels of corruption in Ghana.
The report highlights the 2020 election killings and how none of the investigations officials announced have been completed, and no perpetrator has been brought to justice after more than two years. This observation is troubling as Ghana prepares for another round of presidential and parliamentary elections next year.
President Akufo-Addo has refused to make any public comment on the killings or commiserate with grieving families even though they occurred under his watch as Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces.
Hon. Ablakwa stated that the climate of impunity has emboldened the likes of Braggadocios Bryan Acheampong to lawlessly promise more violence and mayhem during the 2024 election. The security services have been toothless, helpless and hapless following the infamous incendiary war-mongering statements from the Cabinet Minister.
Hon. Ablakwa is hopeful that Ghana's Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) will expedite action on the petition he and Hon. Emmanuel Armah Buah brought before it in 2021 demanding justice for the slain compatriots.
He believes that when CHRAJ and other institutions show patriotic courage by eventually taking action on the 2020 gruesome killings, they will be helping to prevent an escalation in 2024.
The 2022 Country Reports also document other heinous killings such as the Nkoranza killings and the Yendi Killing by police officers. It is unacceptable that perpetrators have not been brought to book.
The US State Department report further draws attention to the continuous harassment and attacks on journalists. The closure of Oyerepa FM and the assault on Connect FM staff feature prominently.
Activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor and ASEPA boss Mensah Thompson may take some solace that more and more international observers are following their controversial judicial cases with keen interest.
Hon. Ablakwa urged relevant authorities to immediately outline concrete steps about the unresolved killings, endemic corruption, brutalities by security personnel, harassment of journalists and activists, poor prison conditions, attacks on free expression and gender-based violence.
The US State Department's 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices is a peer review and external assessment that focuses on matters many key actors, including opposition politicians and CSOs, have consistently raised. The report has many similarities with other reports, such as the latest 2022 Amnesty International Report on Ghana.