Opinions of Monday, 18 May 2020

Columnist: TT Caternor

Jean Mensa, will over 392,455 Ghanaians from the Central Region not vote in 2020?

Jean Adukwei Mensa, EC chair Jean Adukwei Mensa, EC chair

Jean Mensa is decreeing that over 392, 455 Ghanaians from the Central Region will not vote in 2020, because they don’t have a Ghana Card as a requirement to register. The question is, are they not citizens?

Jean Mensa’s Electoral Commission and Ken Attafuah’s National Identification Authority are like square pegs in round holes

As Sydney Smith once famously said, "as they say, you can't fit a square peg in a round hole because you aren't going to fit in unless you re-shape your edges."

Why will the President leave sensitive constitutionally created Offices like these in the hands of Jean Mensa and Ken Attafuah to decide who qualifies to vote? I wish I knew.

There is a Ga proverb that translates as, “a crab does not begat a bird.”

Your guess is as good as mine. They are all in the same soup of vindictiveness and capricious abuse of power to fulfill their agenda. Look at how the ladle is steering the thick soup. Very slowly; and that means there is trouble ahead.

What has the Central Region done wrong to the EC and NIA to make them want to revoke their rights to register and vote?

What robbery strategy have the EC and NIA activated to take away the peoples" electoral fortunes in the Central Region?

Is there more in the inept practices of preventing them from exercising the right to vote come 7th December 2020?

Is the general public aware that the EC and NIA want to disenfranchise over 392,445 good people of the Central Region?

Are they not Ghanaians? Are they not 18 years and above?

These innocent people probably voted for the NPP in 2016 to win the infamous election with a 1 million margin. What has changed? Is it because the NPP hasn’t fulfilled their promises?

Because of the NPP’s new agenda innocent Ghanaians must suffer.

Why are they reducing their total suffrage numbers for voters by cutting them off?

Apart from those who just turned 18 years, the majority of them have been voting since 1992 till 2016, and they must vote in 2020.

You don’t have a right to throw them out of the 2020 voters register by virtue of changing the basic requirements of who a Ghanaian is.

If these people don’t have passports and don't have Ghana Cards, it is obvious they cannot register to vote on 7th December 2020.

What an inept reason to disenfranchise Ghanaians for your parochial interest?

The Electoral Commission's Provisional Code Book 2019 has registered voters of 1,463,383 for the Central Region.

The National Identification Authority also has a total number of registered persons of 1,070,928

The current number of people who are likely to be disenfranchised by the NIA is 392,455!!!

Over 392,455 people cannot vote in the Central Region? Why? Is this fair?

They all have the rights of Ghanaian citizens as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.

What was the crime of the Central Region to have a deficit of 392,455? Is it because the region often swings to determine who wins the Presidential election in Ghana?

Is the NIA in bed with the EC to reduce the number of voters in the Central Region?

And for what reason?

Neither the EC nor the NIA wants to own up who is perpetuating this fraudulent act.

The Electoral Commission has presented to Parliament a Constitutional Instrument to amend C.I 91 to make the Ghana card and the Ghana passport the only form of identification before one could be captured onto the yet to be compiled new voters' register.

Parliament's Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, in a statement issued on Friday, May 15, 2020, indicated that if the Electoral Commission succeeds with the intended amendment and proceeds to compile the new voters’ register, millions of Ghanaians will be disenfranchised

NPP MP Kennedy Agyapong recently said the NPP is leading, in an election yet to take place, with a margin of 1.5 million votes.

Parliament's Majority Leader, Kyei Mensah Bonsu, is warning that the December 2020 polls will be violent without a new voters’ register.

The people of the Central Region will not allow this to happen to them hence it’s either they are all given Ghana Cards or Ghana Passports or they will resist the compilation of a new register.

I will leave you with a famous quote from the Ghana National Anthem: “(God) help us to resist oppressor's rule.”

By TT Caternor, La Dadekotopon