Financial Analyst, Sidney Casely-Hayford has described comments made by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Daboya/Mankarigu in the Northern Region, calling for adulterous women to be stoned and hanged, as an act of terrorism.
“Even if you are saying this on religious grounds, even if he says that he is establishing an Islamic State or imposing Sharia law…I think we have reached a point where all these kind of things is just terrorism. This is an act of terrorism. This is such a gross abuse of a person’s rights,” he opined.
The MP, Nelson Abudu Baani, said in Parliament on Thursday: “Countries like Afghanistan, if you go behind your husband, they hang you or they stone you to death so if we add that, we will have genuine women in marriages.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”ic2nJRs5exYsN3hN4sSiNofDOji4Dmv7″]His comments, which have widely been criticised, were made during deliberations on the Interstate Succession bill in Parliament on Thursday.
The current PNDC Law 111, passed in 1985, stipulates that the distribution of the estate of a man who died without a will is determined by the customary law of inheritance of the area from which he hailed, or the type of marriage under which the deceased married.
The new bill is aimed at rectifying the situation by giving more rights to women with regards to property of their deceased husbands.
And speaking on The Big Issue on Saturday, Mr. Casely-Hayford called for the immediate resignation of the MP from his position in Parliament.
“I think he should immediately leave leave Parliament. This is not the kind of talk and the kind of persons we want running this country and making the laws in this country. This is not the kind of person whose mindset is geared towards enhancing our values of democracy and enhancing our human rights perspectives. It is so bad that if we are going to continue to have such persons in parliament who are going to make such decisions for us then we are in deep trouble,” he said.
He added: “If as woman goes out and has a baby with someone else she should be stoned and hanged? What about the man [she did it with], is the man not just as guilty or even more guilty? Is anybody right to tell me to stone people? Under any circumstance, is it right? Do you not try people first and decide on appropriate punishment? It is primitive, it is uncivilised.”
He has called on the Speaker of Parliament to “bring the MP to book” next week and request for an apology and a retraction at the House’s next sitting.
According to him, nobody can advocate for the killing of anybody in the country for whatever reason, as Ghana is “not in a sate of Sharia Law, we are not an Islamic State and we are not a Christian State, we are in a plural religious state. Every body has a right to speak their mind but you don’t have a right to take a life, irrespective of your religion. If is this an act of terrorism and this is what some religions prefer to chose and call law, I disagree.”
By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana