The declaration was made by Mr James Arthur Yeboah, the Returning Officer.

Four hundred and forty-eight thousand, five hundred and forty-five (448,545) out of the 450,812 voters, who turned out to vote in the referendum, said “Yes”, representing 99.5 per cent of the total votes cast.

The “No” votes numbered 1,384 and that translates into 0.3 percent.

Rejected ballots totalled 883, which represented 0.2 per cent.

There are 525,275 registered voters in the area and the turnout was 85.82 per cent, which was over and above the constitutional threshold of 50 per cent.