TEAM OF POPULAR YOUTH SUPPORTS THE NDC AND OTHER PARTIES TO BOYCOTTE IEA DEBATE

The Team of Popular Youth (TOPY) wants to appeal to all political parties including
the ruling National Democratic Congress not to partake in this years
IEA Debate.

Considuring the preparation and arrangements put together by the IEA themselves and how they
want to carry out this years debate says it all.
One does not need to put on a telescope inorder to read through what the IEA is up to. TOPY can authoritatively say
that the IEA is finding, ways And means to use thier platform to project the opposition leader Nana Akuffo Addo Dankwa
instead of giving an equal opportunity to all presidential candidates, hence, pairing Nana Akuffo Addo to
H.E John Dramani Mahama so that can leak informations to Nana Akuffo Addo Dankwa
the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party and to also belittle the chances of
all the other political parties as well.

Lest we forget, this is not the first time TOPY is questioning or criticizing the
mode of work and delivery of the IEA, the public will remember that in the year 2012, TOPY petitioned
the IEA on the credibility of some of its committee members and asked them to do something
about it or else we advised the NDC not to partake in the previous debate for some
reasonable doubts. The petion got to do with a story The Herald Newspaper published
and also carried by www.ghanaweb.com and some other websites in the country
concerning some members they suspected to be persons on the board who were affiliated with the NPP.
The IEA responded to our petition and called us for a meeting to
substantiate our claims. We met Mrs Jean Mensah who is the Executive Director of the IEA
in our first meeting and deliberated with her on the personalities we thought they could
re-investigate before confirming their inclusion in the committee. Even though Mrs Jean Mensah
promised to meet us with her team to go deep into the allegations we raised, we didnt
hear from them again till date.

But TOPY can confidently say that, our doubts and allegations were justified and confirmed
by the results we had after the IEA debate. It was clear that some of the members of the
committee leaked information to some of the Presidential candates on the debate.
For instance, Dr. Ransford Djampo, whose influence on the IEA can not be disputed
was caught on tape allerging that, one of their members leaked some of the questions
to one Presidential candidate.

It has also now been confirmed that indeed some members on the committee were sympathizers
and card bearing members of the New Patriotic Party including the Chairman of the IEA
board Pastor Mensah Otabil. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah who was the master of ceremony has
confirmed on some radio stations that, long before he even assumed the seat as the host
of Joy Fm’s morning political show, he was already a card bearing member of the NPP, yet,
the IEA could not investigate him to know his background. This alone tells us that,
the IEA lacks the credibility to organize a clean and fair dabate for our Presidential
candidates.

TOPY also thinks that, the IEA has shown a gross disrespect and discriminatory to all
the political parties for trying to relagate them and put the NDC and the NPP as the main
political parties to have the finest debate. We think that, this goes along way to
contradict our constitution of the Republic of Ghana. The constitution of Ghana does not
discriminate or projects any political party above any other political party irrespective
of the structure or the status of the political parties. So therefore, for the IEA to
relegate all the political parties and put the NDC and the NPP ahead of them is an insult
and an afront to the constitution of Ghana. Its a total disrespect to all the Presidential
candidates.

If IEA wants to be seen as truly a credible institution that is qualified to undertake this
debate for our political parties, then it should respect the constitution of the Republic
of Ghana as well as all the Political parties. TOPY encourages debates of that sort but we
think that, the right institutions should rather be given that opportunity to host the debate
so as to clear doubts among Ghanaians.

We want to use this an opportunity to entreat the Government to strengthen the Nation Commission
for Civic Education for instance to take up this mantle so as to avoid this kind of unjust
and discriminations. We dont think, any Government agency can discriminate among any political
party or Presidential candidate as long as he or she or that political party has passed through
the neccessary structures to qualify to vy for the highest position on the land.

Chairman of TOPY
Stephen Kenneth Nakujah
0244662684/0277128777