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The chief and residents of Kandiga, a community in the western Kassena-Nankana district of the Upper East region, said they would not participate in the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC).
They said the unanimous decision to boycott the exercise was due to irregularities in the demarcation and description of the community’s boundaries.
Kandiga Regional Council Chairman Mathew Akakuzia at a press conference on Sunday said the irregularities centered on mis-naming a census area for two electoral areas in defiance of a court ruling.
He said Akurugu-Daboo was appointed enumeration area for the electoral areas of Akunkongo-Abempingo and Atosale / Azaasi, in contempt of a court ruling that approved and published the two electoral areas as legitimate names for any national exercise.
Mr Akakuzia said Akurugu-Daboo, on the other hand, was the name of one out of seven clan families in the two electoral areas, so it was illegal to use it as a counting area.
He said that the Accra Automated High Court on October 18, 2012, decided to quash the use of Akurugu-Daboo as the name of the area and that community lawyers have formally written to various stakeholders to draw their attention to the correct name. Of the place.
Mr. Akakuzia said the decision of institutions and departments, including the Ghana Statistical Service, to continue using Akurugu-Daboo as a counting area was a violation of basic human rights and the integrity of the population.
He said residents of the electoral areas of Bembiisi and Nabilingo were also struggling, but attempts to get the regional statistician and district census official in Paga and other stakeholders to resolve them were unsuccessful. .
“In these two electoral zones, some of the houses of Kandiga and the health center of Kassena Nankana East are captured under Mirigu and Nabango, which makes the affected inhabitants uncomfortable to participate in the counting exercise,” he said. said Mr. Akakuzia.
“It should also be noted that Kandiga has a total number of 10 electoral zones of which eight are placed under the district of Kassena / Nankana West and two others under the municipality of Kassena / Nankana, which makes the geodemographic demarcation of the area random and discriminatory. . ”
“For the record, we would like to inform you that the electoral zones of Akunkongo / Abempingo and Atosale / Azaasi, which were then called the electoral zone of Akurugu-Daboo, were duly inaugurated within the framework of the Kandiga regional council under the authority of the Kassena-Nankana District, in 2003, until some people managed to carve it up to be part of Kassena / Nankana Municipality for their own parish interests.
Mr. Akakuzia called for the proper demarcation of the 10 electoral zones and placing them as a single census zone under the traditional Kandiga zone in Kassena / Nankana West district, as this was their ethnic group.
“Considering the likely consequences and the quagmire the community will experience after all this exercise, we have unanimously decided to boycott the current population and housing census until our concerns are taken into account,” did he declare.
“We are committed to fully cooperating with the Ghana Statistical Service to ensure a satisfactory and successful enumeration exercise in our community once our concerns have been addressed. ”
— RNG
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