Opinions of Tuesday, 3 November 2015

Columnist: Nana Akua Tweneboah-Koduah

Did NPP take Ghanaians on a wild goose chase?

Opinion Opinion

How can you accuse somebody of stealing from you, and then go to court and leave the incriminating evidence in your house? Who will ever take you serious if you claim on top of your voice that somebody who is not qualified to vote is on the voter list, yet when given the chance to prove it in public you chicken out claiming you only want to prove it on camera?

Another interesting thing: Was is not NPP’s presidential running mate, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, who held a press conference falsely claiming that there were over 70,000 Togolese citizens registered on the voter register in the Volta Region? Yet when the Electoral Commission (EC) organized a forum to collate views on the voter register, Bawumia was nowhere in sight. In fact, Bawumia did not attend the EC forum but accepted a speaking engagement outside the country. Yes, Bawumia was not in Ghana.

It is this same Bawumia, who cooked up numbers and went to the Supreme Court after the 2012 Elections claiming that Nana Akufo-Addo had been robbed, therefore, asking the court to throw out almost 4 million valid votes in order to declare sore loser Akufo-Addo President.

The NPP is noted as a party fused with many lawyers. In fact, members of the party always boast that they are the more intelligent people in Ghana. Yet, when the NPP was given the best possible chance to prove to the world concerning their bogus claim that the EC voter list is indeed bloated with foreign names and underage people, they went to the forum with empty hands. It was all empty book-long talk. No evidence, no facts, but just plain non-facts!

And very insultingly, the NPP had the guts to tell Ghanaians that they are now getting their evidence ready to release to the EC. What were they thinking when they went to the forum which they even threaten to boycott?

More than two months ago, Bawumia who has gradually become a “Liar-in-Chief” in Ghanaian politics, held a “clouded” press conference surrounded by Akufo-Addo and other NPP bigwigs and blatantly told the whole world that the EC’s voter list was bloated with foreign names.

Bawumia then went on and dropped the “Mother-Of-All-Lies” that more than 70,000 Togolese citizens are on the current voter list in the Volta Region. Bawumia, who uses lies as his stock in trade went further. He promised Ghanaians that he would shortly release an additional list he had compiled which had foreigners and minors on the voter list in other regions of the country.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is getting close to three months, yet Bawumia, the self-acclaimed voter mathematician who has the tendency of throwing numbers around to deceive people, has vanished. He has not spoken about the bloated voter list again. Even though Ghanaians are still waiting for Bawumia to produce the so-called smoking gun on the voter list, he is totally lost.

Ghanaians need to wake up as the NPP people are simply taking the country on a wild goose chase. Just look at the series of petitions and demonstrations coupled with “Political Gymnastics” they portrayed on this so-called over-bloated voter list. They simply did all that so that the EC will cave in to their demand for a new voter list.

The NPP plan for a new voter list was to prevent those who do not come from the Ashanti and Eastern Regions, notably Ewes and Northerners from registering to vote. Additionally, the NPP had a plan to register minors in the two regions in order to boost Akufo-Addo’s chances of forming the next government. That was their main reason for calling for a new voter register.

But when it counted the most for them to prove their bogus case, Bawumia and Akufo-Addo were both AWOL (Absent Without Leave). The two people who stand to gain the most if the EC allows a new voter register were outside the country chilling whilst their former national chairman Peter Mac Manu sweated profusely to justify the numbers Bawumia spilled around before leaving town.

Nana Akufo-Addo is looking to become the President of Ghana based on fear and lies. He does not have what it takes to become the Commander-in-Chief so he is using the fear factor to walk his way to the presidency. If you do not have any record to run on or do not have any credible alternate to offer voters, fear and lies become your stock in trade.

nakuakoduah@yahoo.com