I have said this before and hereby repeat the same: that it is annoyingly ironic for the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to be scheming, once again, to rig this year’s general election by the dastardly and cynical use of the New Patriotic Party-minted National Health Insurance (NHIS) Cards. As the landmark 2012 presidential-election petition proceedings glaringly exposed, to the utmost horror of many a democracy-loving Ghanaian, key NDC operatives like Messrs. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa and Fiifi Kwetey had criminally used the National Health Insurance Cards to pack foreign nationals, largely their Togolese neighbors, relatives and friends, onto Ghana’s National Voters’ Register (NVR).

This is what the Wood Supreme Court has been diligently working around the clock to forestall; and it is essentially what the Ramadan-Nimako Decision is about. So far, the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress, brazenly using their deviously planted surrogates at the Electoral Commission (EC), led by Chairperson Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei, has been stiffly resisting the otherwise salutary and wholesome move to thoroughly disinfest Ghana’s National Voters’ Register from rank alien contamination (See “NDC Won’t Allow NPP to Disenfranchise NHIS Registrants – Ablakwa” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/1/16).

So far, what the Wood Supreme Court has said is that the National Health Insurance Cards cannot be used to register to vote anywhere in the country, because they cannot be used as a legitimate proof of one’s citizenship, being that quite a substantial percentage of non-Ghanaians, both resident within the country and outside, have been proven by Team Bawumia to have gained easy access to and/or possession of these cards, which have also proven to have been illegally used to solicit the votes of non-Ghanaian citizens from across the country’s borders. The NDC operatives are deeply troubled because they realize that it has been largely through their criminal packing of foreign nationals onto our National Voters’ Register that has enabled them to secure the Flagstaff House for their presidential candidates.

In sum, now the game is up; and the leaders of the Akufo-Addo-led main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) have sternly warned the NDC apparatchiks and their imperious surrogates of the so-called Independent Electoral Commission against any dastardly attempt to repeating their electoral fraud of yesteryear. The NPP movers and shakers have also warned their NDC counterparts against unwisely inducing an ungovernable state of civil strife. Indeed, it was the preceding cautionary note which Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa, the Deputy Education Minister, sought to reply when he told an audience of party supporters and sympathizers at Asuogyaman, in the Afram Plains area of the Eastern Region, that party operatives such as himself intended to call the bluff of the Wood Supreme Court on the banned use of the NHIS Cards as legitimate proof of citizenship in the lead-up to the 2016 general election.

Maybe somebody with Mr. Ablakwa’s personal and political interests at heart ought to warn the diehard Trokosi nationalist upstart to steer thoroughly clear of the Eastern Region, if he wants to retain his North-Tongu parliamentary seat come November or December 2016. We must also highlight the fact that contrary to what scarecrow propagandists like Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa would have his captive audiences of NDC supporters and sympathizers believe, the express ban on the illegal use of the NHIS Cards as a citizenship authentication document does not in any way disenfranchise eligible NDC members and supporters from casting their ballots at any of the country’s legion polling stations. What it rightly does is to promptly and effectively weed out alien pretenders to Ghanaian citizenship.

The charlatanic likes of Messrs. Okudzeto-Ablakwa, John Dumelo and Ofosu-Kwakye are fully aware of the existence of other more authentic proof-of-citizenship IDs approved by the Supreme Court, such as birth certificates, driver’s licenses and state-issued IDs, among several others. These Trokosi nationalist scofflaws and their bootlicking Mountain-Rat had better be warned against playing with fire while recklessly choosing to reside in a straw-hut.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs